Hichki Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in London

Standard of food dropped ALOT in recent times. Service has always been bad but more noticeable this visit, it's like the staff members are actively trying to NOT communicate with each other about your tables order. Items arriving at awkward times during meal. We sort of got scammed on the whole service charge / tip situation too. I've come here many times in the past for a quick fix and they hadn't ever billed me for a service charge (I have images of the previous visit receipts too) but this visit with some friends, the waitress comes to the table with the bill and actively makes it known that she personally removed the service charge off our bill and asked if we could tip separately in cash. She stood at the table, towering over us as we had to communicate amongst ourselves what the appropriate tip would be (members of the group I was with did not want to tip at all due to the poor service and overall experience) but I ended up having a tenner in my pocket and put it on the table. Obviously her mood shifted quite a bit when she saw only a tenner. One friend could've sworn she had made a disgusted face but she did act cold and uninterested in us after she saw the so called "tip". I wonder if the manager or owner knows if staff are pulling this off on customers? There is no mention of service charge on the menu booklets like restaurants are legally required to do. Bill came to just over 100GBP. Food was below mediocre, in previous visits it's just mediocre. The staff themselves look to be Indian, they understand and speak Hindi amongst themselves. This place used to be cheaper, hopefully they don't plan to increase their prices because that might have been the only thing they had going for them. I've been known to come back despite the average food so who knows, maybe I will visit again if I'm down bad desperate enough for some Indian food. I'll write another review when I do.

My message to staff: this isn't America, if your employer is underpaying you below the minimum wage threshold, take him/her to court and get what's yours. Don't pull stunts or lies on customers about taking away service charge, when it didn't exist in the first place, just to get a cash tip for lackluster poor...

We went after 1.30pm to Hitchki. From their opening, the interior has changed and looks very luxurious. Very beautifully done. It was not that busy, all together including myself & my sister, there were 8 of us. We were greeted warmly by the male waiter. The menu has changed a lot since I last went to the restaurant. I am sure they had more vegetarian dishes... nonetheless for starters, we ordered their street food items: masala chips, samosa chaat & paani puri. For mains we ordered 2 Garlic naans, a veg ladurab (apologies for spelling it wrong), paneer tikka & for drinks, a strawberry mojito & a Fanta. We asked the lady who took our order, (this had to be repeated twice) that we wanted starters & main separate so why was the paneer tikka given as starters? When questioned, the lady spoke in her language to the friendly waiter rudely (now do not assume we can't understand Hindu- very rude) that we messed up our order! DO NOT get the pani puri- it was cold, so hard and it tasted stale. The mint sauce has no flavour, just full of spice. So disappointed. We were given masala chai (which we did not order) we ordered masala chips! This was given with our mains. Another disappointing dish with just some sauce on it, seemed like it was microwaved & tasted soggy! The Paneer tikka had become cold by the time the mains came, so I asked another worker to warm it up, he touched the paneer with his hands to see if its cold! I mean why??? The service was so bad, mojito came late, the naan was the best item. Full of flavour. Hitchki, if you aren't bothered to serve well in the afternoon then I suggest you don't open till after 5pm! Your staff were inconsistent & when questioned, they were annoyed and please stop speaking in your language- extremely rude! Also, we paid 51.90 for cold, stale and just a not good service. Hitchki change your workers, I think they need training on customer service but it is outrageous to be served cold food and for your workers to touch it with their hands especially during covid times! We will certainly not be coming back again! Nice place to sit in but the food was disappointing and change...

The following points are important to being with: It's actually closer to 3.5 stars Service is slow - even when the restaurant wasn't busy at all The price made up for the extended waiting time (