Indian Essence by Atul Kochhar — Restaurant in London

My wife and I took an early dinner reservation, and glad we did. Before we even had starters, the restaurant was bustling for a Saturday night. As always, we were donned with some popadoms to start, while we made decisions on our upcoming meal. We received our cocktails, admittedly I had a beautiful pineapple and ginger virgin version. These were bloody stunning. Our starters then arrived. We ordered a trio of tandoor chicken, which each were beautifully juicy. We also ordered prawns which were very tasty, but the prawns were only just over cooked. It didn’t detract from how flavoursome they actually were. We ordered our mains at the start, which the waiter weighed in with some advice. The advice was welcomed as my wife ordered a beautiful lamb dish, and I ordered a melt in the mouth goat dish. The advice the waiter gave, was to not order a rice each, but to maybe try a vegetable dish also. We shared a lemon rice and a potato and chickpea dish. It was great advice considering the portion sizes. We also ordered a bread each, my wife having a plain naan, and myself going for the keema version. Every part of the main was awesomely delicious, with the potato and chick pea side dish being our least favourite. Now by saying that, it was hard for any dish to contend with the lamb and goat dishes. It was nice, just lost within the awesomeness of the mains. We ordered some more drinks and pondered over the dessert menu. I went with a chocolate fondant with orange curd ice cream. My wife had an apple and plum crumble with cinnamon ice cream. For the first time in our relationship, I had food envy of what my wife had ordered. It was the best crumble I think I’ve ever had, which is hard thing to say. The chocolate fondant was slightly overcooked, but my goodness was amazing paired with the orange curd ice cream. I just wished I’d ordered that bloody crumble. Overall, every part of our experience there, including the service staff, was simply exceptional. Given this place has been around for a decade, there isn’t much I could say that probably hasn’t been said already, but just want to highlight that this place is worth the value of the pound...

Busy, tight seating to the extent neighbouring tables can easily listen or glance into your evening but as I play tennis I shut that out and focused on my sister's great conversation and the meal. Some might struggle though.

The tasting menu looked fantastic and had a paired and unpaired option that was reasonably priced for the quality on offer. However, I went for the mixed Kebabs and my sister had the Street Food Bubble Wheat which looked and was reported as delicious my starter was too.

We had a goat curry, mushroom rice, charred aubergine and a Naan basket and it was all excellently presented and the taste lived up to that. The Coconut Creme Brulee for dessert didn't disappoint. I am AF and th Salted Lassi was great although the second was over salted. The art of a a good restaurant is the experience as a whole bur also ensurinf that enquiring minds will wish to revisit and try something else on the menu. I would.

As a reasonably frequent visitor to Michelin Star restaurants, mostly in Asia, I would say the service is a little bit quirky. As siblings we were wished a Happy Anniversary and a waitress made a very long job of the crumb scrape with a strange smirk at the end which seemed a bit odd. The jacket collection at the end was also framed with in jokes between the staff at the end of their shift which also seemed a bit out of place when customers hadn't left yet.

Overall I would go back for sure and the menu has been well designed. I enjoyed the evening for a variety of reasons with the food and company being...

Visited as a couple on a not-too-busy Saturday night, fully expecting to pay in excess of £120 for the meal, which we did. At that level I expect the food to be excellent (which it was) and the service to match (it didn't).

This is a shame as we could have visited this establishment again ourselves and brought others here too, given how close it is to home. However, The Tamasha in nearby Bromley easily matches this restaurant for the food quality and style, but in my experience equally surpasses it for service.

Suggestions to the management:

Make sure that the table is set with all the glasses etc. necessary before seating the diners so that they don't have to ask.

When your wine waiter opens a £30+ bottle of wine, he ought to be experienced enough not to pierce the cork and leave pieces floating in the glass of wine he pours out for tasting. In addition, when it is pointed out to him, he could consider apologising rather than just taking that glass away and pouring another out from the bottle.

When a customer asks for a glass of water, providing this sooner than 15 minutes would be nice.

Given that you were only 2/3rds full, getting the starters to diners sooner than 40 minutes might be something you want to work on.

Consider whether your waiting staff should really be serving plates by sticking their thumb on the part where the food will go, and also perhaps presenting it how it left...