Colony Restaurant — Restaurant in London

To other diners, especially groups of women: if you see a waiter named Azi, run. Do not let him near your table. Do not give him the chance to ruin your evening like he ruined ours.

This was supposed to be a celebration. It turned into a disgrace.

We came to this restaurant for a bridal shower, a celebration that was completely derailed by the appalling, arrogant, and downright rude behaviour of a waiter named Azi a man so rude and dismissive, you’d think he owned the place. Spoiler: he doesn’t. It’s genuinely unbelievable he’s employed in hospitality.

We asked for 2x mixed grills for one (£17.90 each). He somehow “misheard” and brought us 2x sharing platters at £36.90 each DOUBLE the price. When we called him over - before touching the food - to politely explain the mistake, hoping he’d fix it, he scoffed and said, “That’s your fault. I went over the order with you and you didn’t correct me.” My friend did correct you, Azi and you dismissed her, just like you dismissed the entire table all night.

At one point, my friend even walked over to him, trying to get his help directly - thinking maybe, face-to-face, he’d actually listen. His response? A cold, “I have other customers to go to.” As if we were an inconvenience. As if we weren’t paying customers. As if we didn’t matter.

It only got worse. We brought a cake for the bride-to-be, and while we watched TWO other cakes brought out for other parties, ours was completely ignored. We waited patiently. TWO. HOURS. Nothing. When we finally asked for the bill, our cake was returned to us in its box. Untouched. As if it had never existed. The message was loud and clear: “Leave.”

And believe me, we wanted to.

The contempt Azi had for our table - a group of 12 women - was palpable. He barely acknowledged us. He didn’t speak with respect. He hovered around with arrogance and disdain. And here’s the worst part: we noticed how different we were treated compared to tables that had a man seated with them. The contrast was shameful. It was disgusting. Sexism in plain sight.

We asked another staff member - one of the only kind people we interacted with that evening - who Azi was. Her exact words: “He’s not the owner. He’s just a waiter.” Well, he certainly doesn’t behave like one. He behaves like a tyrant - on a power trip, lording over female customers with a sneer.

We were given a 10% discount and had the service charge removed. But make no mistake: we still paid for the incorrect food - food we didn’t order, didn’t want, and couldn’t stomach.

Because honestly, no matter how nice the food was - and yes, the food itself was good - it was drowned in bitterness. Bitter from the humiliation. Bitter from the anger. Bitter from being treated like we didn’t matter. A celebration turned into something we couldn’t wait to escape.

To management: you should think twice before having someone like Azi to represent your business.

None of us will...

The Colony Ilford (seven King's) Alhamdulillah still on a soft launch and with good reason, there is great thought and care been taken here to get all the items on the menu up to a very good standard. There are some absolute gems to be had. They are trying Anne be at an interesting ideas as well as delivering on solid staples.

The venue: mainly a restaurant with a shisha lounge out the back £25 per shisha and a small prayer facility also being prepped for use.

The menu: an interesting 2 way spilt between continental and Desi/Indian/Pakistani (which everyone floats ya boat).

The staff: still getting up to running speed, however the management are knowledgeable on the dishes being served and provided sound advice when asked as well as what has inspired the dish.

Interesting items tried, watermelon lassi oddly bizarre but executed really well. Noir Mojito, this is a French twist version of the classic mojito, to me it was EPIC.

Kofta scotch egg, not for the light appetite but well constructed from the crunchy exterior through to the slightly softer yolk.

Desi wings with okra fries, the fries need a little more work but the wings on point with punchy masala

My friend had the fillet steak, medium well as advised (he was a very happy camper) personally I would have gone medium. Served up with fully loaded fries to be fair a dish on its own.

I opted for the desi mains, palak gosht was really good lots of meat in there and well balanced in flavour, sadly in my joy I was taken down by a black elachi grenade!!! Soldiering on the daal makhni, ok you're not going to get the taste of the punjab spot on but this comes bloody close (I might have still been shell shocked from the elachi).

Finally onto the desserts...we got an off the menu item.. Just think a falooda in a milk cake with a dollop of rose ice cream.. Unreal it worked so well. Ok the menu we went for the chocolate orange bar, tis very indulgent and needed a cup of chai ( masala chai).

Of course not all items were as well polished as this, the salty lassi, far too watery for me and lacked enough salt and the colony starter was another let down. This was fed back to restaurant and they are looking to improve.

Alhamdulillah, great to see a trail blazing effort being made here. All items on the menu are HMC however the wagyu beef is specially imported in and is halal but not HMC certified, this prevents certification.

Pictures were a bit dark due to the ambient lighting, perfect for...

Colony is a nicely decorated restaurant, so we went as a family, there was 7 of us in total. We did book in advance, the whole restaurant was empty and we were still given a weirdly shaped table, when there were clearly other tables available. Regardless, that wasn’t a big issue, we then only received an iPad to look at the menu for the 7 of us. When we proceeded to ask if we could get more menus, they just went on to say for us to scan the QR code, which didn’t even load all the images on the menu. We had the prawn, chicken lollipops and fish for the starters and they were very good, so we had high expectations for the mains but we were disappointed. Originally we wanted to get the steaks, however we were told that they had run out which was quite unfortunate, this is what we were looking forward to. We got lamb burgers, the bun felt stale, so I had to tear off the top just to make it somewhat satisfactory. The malasa fries were good and piping hot, would recommend those and would recommend the biriyani. We ordered the chicken fries as well, it took a bit of time for it to come out so the cheese solidified, making the chips less crispy and initially becoming a solid block thus not tasting the flavours and not making it enjoyable to eat. we ordered one grill platter for two and one grill platter for one. I would say we was quite disappointed with these, the lamb pieces and lamb chops was dry but the chicken wings that come with the platter was quite nice. All the drinks that we ordered (colony spritzer, lychee mojito, apple bamboo, pina colada, coconut kiss, regular mojito) were great, and so was the presentation. I liked the fact that dry ice was given for the pictures. The server we had, we could tell that she was new as some lack of experience was shown, but she was very friendly and apologetic if any mistakes were made. I wouldn’t say I would be coming here again as we didn’t have a great experience with the food and the amount of flies that were in the restaurant was very off putting. At one point, we looked up to the ceiling and there were like 15, some even landing on our straws and food.

If you are looking to come to colony I would recommend the drinks and...