Hanar — Restaurant in London

EDIT The owner Rawand reached out to me after my experience here and was really apologetic about what happened and wanted to look into what had happened and rectify it. He did investigate and gave me a full explanation of what happened that evening which I really appreciated and can now say that our poor experience was likely to be a one off due to staffing. Rawand was great at listening to my feedback and rectifying the situation for us as customers so I can say that this is a business which does care about its customers, reputation and being the best it can be. And I would suggest others to still try this restaurant as there are lots of really positive reviews.

Sadly had a very poor experience here. Came as a group of about 10 for a birthday and had booked in advance. We arrived and were seated outdoors by the entrance which was quite loud and busy and hot (no ventilation in the outdoor bit) and not very ambient. The service started off incredibly slow and continued to be, even when the restaurant was less busy later on. The drinks were slow, there were not enough cups for water. It’s BYOB but you need to pay a fee per person, and they didn’t bring us enough wine glasses and we kept having to ask. The food took over one hour to arrive, we chased a few times as we had somewhere to go, and a male waiter was quite rude and unpleasant toward us and gave an excuse as for the slow food. We asked for some bread or snacks whilst we wait complimentary which he did not seem willing and then left. A female manager then came over and apologised and said we would have some bits complimentary whilst we wait. They proceeded to bring us a small bread basket for the entire table, followed by a plate of some sauces. However was definitely not enough for us all and we were all very hungry. When food finally came, it was one plate by one, so it was awkward to all start eating at the Same time. Some people had almost finished food by time others got food. The order was also messed up and we had a few wrong plates served but we kept them Anyway since we just wanted to eat and go. There was lots of confusion surrounding the food and sides as they plated multiple things together. The food itself was completely underwhelming. Over salted, lack of flavour in the chicken, salads were ok. Salty tough lamb of very low quality. Some strange baked beans on my friends shawarma plate. The bread was hard and salty and got cold very quickly, became like a cracker. It just was really not good and there is way better food on rye lane. The price is also far too expensive for the food quality, just felt really let down by it. At the end of the meal I asked the female manager about the delays, she was very lovely and friendly and apologised and explained that it turned out that a machine in the kitchen has actually broken as it fell on the floor. On top of that a chef was missing or something and the service staff were new. This explained the fact that the service did not seem put together at all, with multiple waiters and waitresses interacting with us, causing confusion about the orders. There were also 2 rude staff (a male and female waitress). Unfortunately, do to all these factors, I cannot recommend this restaurant at all and would suggest going elsewhere in Peckham where there are tons of great...

In a nutshell: Good for a couple of drinks and some hummus, but def not for dinner and even less for bigger groups. Such a disappointing experience! I was really looking forward to eating here, but now that I have I really do not get the hype. The atmosphere and aesthetic of the place is nice, but everything else was quite underwhelming. We waited 30 min for someone to take the food order, and then 1h 15min extra for food - and some of the things we order never arrived, and as our waiter finished the shift while we were waiting for food no one was looking after our order (shoutout to the girl that was not a waitress but a service assistant that took charge and got us the missing items later on!!). When the food arrived, we had no cutlery, no napkins and no side plates (though we order a few of their sharing platters). I went to the kitchen to get forks, they ask me how many we were at the table, I said 7 so they gave me FOUR forks and told me to let them know later if we needed more? Food itself was quite pricey for the quantity/quality, I got the tapsi (aubergine stew) which was mostly rice and salad and a little spoon of aubergine stew on the side (for £14), and my friends ordered the meat sharing platters which were mostly rice and bulgur, and very little meat (for a whooping £40). We order the vegetarian mezze platter (£14) to share and it was quite small and really not good for sharing, and was missing items as stated on the menu (came with no falafel). I will say their pistachio hummus was absolutely gorgeous though! But I’m afraid that there are much nicer and better value for money places for Kurdish/Middle Eastern food.

I think that it would be a very nice place if all you want is to get a couple of drinks and a few of their dips and bread to share as a snack.

EDIT: After seeing the review, the owner reached out to me on Instagram (as I had made my booking via instagram, I guess found my name in their DMs) to offer their apologies. They explained that they are going through something personal, and still training the new staff. They offered a full refund for the meal which I thought was very thoughtful as we did not request...

Came to Hanar for my friends 18th birthday and was really excited, the vibe of the place seemed lovely and had some really good music. Everyone went in and the staff explained that for groups over 8 we had to get a set menu, this wasn’t made clear when the booking was made and I would have loved to try some of the other food. They also said we had to get the set menu because the place was too busy but once we got to our table the place was not very full. We got seated in the upstairs section and were constantly trying to get a waiter to take our order. When the staff finally came back to us they took our order (we ordered a few sharing platters for the group) they explained that they could add an extra serving on the sharing platter as we had an odd number of people. This cost £14 extra. They didn’t take our drinks order so we had to wait for another staff member to call our server. We got two tiny nan breads with two large dips and asked for another serving of nan bread. That never came. Drinks were tiny for the price. After waiting almost an hour for the food we finally got it and the three person sharing platter was clearly the same portion as the two person but put on a different sized plate. Food itself was really really lovely and we all really enjoyed it. Once finished we waited again for another 20 minutes to get the bill. Overall the service from the staff was not great and felt like they didn’t care for a larger group or the fact that we were younger than most of the people dining there. Food and atmosphere was good but the service and attitude...