Lebanese Gardens — Restaurant in London

Horrible experience from the start AND after I left the restaurant.

I attended this restaurant for a birthday celebration with a friend a few weeks ago on a Sunday, and our experience was bad all the way through. Firstly, as we walked in, I noticed that it was completely empty (we would later find this was for good reason) and there was a weird atmosphere. We were seated near a door to the outside Shisha area, which was completely empty. Nevertheless, regardless of the emptiness, the door was still constantly being opened and closed by the staff for no good reason, and blowing cold air towards us and onto our food. My friend requested that the door be closed since it was almost freezing outside, but our requests were not listened to, despite there being no customers outside. We were unsure as to why we were seated where we were, because the entire restaurant was empty anyway, so we could have had a better table. Secondly, despite the restaurant being empty, our food still took a very long time to arrive - especially the deserts, one of which was a premade brownie, which should’ve been brought out to us within a couple of minutes, but instead took over 10 minutes to arrive for no good reason. The food was overly priced, and quite disappointing to say the least, so we left feeling very dissatisfied.

Onto the main issue…. Upon leaving the restaurant, I realised that I had forgotten one of my gloves there. Immediately I called up the restaurant, and gave them a description of my glove, quoting that it was a “brown, leather glove” over and over again, to ensure that they understood what they were looking for. The man on the other end of the phone confirmed with me that he found a “brown leather glove”, and that he would keep it safe for me. I was confident that he had found the correct glove, because he reinstated that it was brown and leather. Two days later, on a Tuesday, I decided to make the journey back to Balham (10 miles from my house) to pick up my lost item, but not before calling the restaurant one more time to make sure that they actually had the correct item. This time, a different person picked up the phone (presumably Sunday’s waiter) and he AGAIN reinstated that he had the brown glove for me to collect. From this, I felt confident that I would not be disappointed, so I made the journey which cost me £10 by public transport. As I arrived at the restaurant, the waiter, I have just spoken to handed me a PAIR of GREY, WOOLEN GLOVES???? I had to explain to him that he had just made me waste hours of my time, plus money on public transport, because he didn’t listen to my requests over the phone. I told him that I had said, over and over again, on the phone that it was a “brown leather glove”, and nothing else. The waiter was apologetic, stating that he would deliver the glove to my house if he found it, but obviously I would not feel comfortable with this.

What baffles me, the most about the situation is the fact that there is no way that both of the workers could have misunderstood what I was saying about 10 times over - the restaurant is always empty and quiet, and I had repeated myself enough times.

Now I am wondering if someone stole my item? How can it magically disappear, after both workers reported seeing it??

I even called to speak to the manager a few days ago, and all he said was that he would have a look around for it, but didn’t provide me with an apology for all of the time and the £10 I wasted coming all the way to Balham from my house.

Overall I would not recommend this restaurant at all - the food isn’t amazing but is overpriced, wait times are long and there is absolutely no customer service whatsoever. The staff seem careless and inexperienced. It would be lovely if the manager took responsibility for all this hassle and reimbursed me for my wasted time...

I'm rarely moved to leave a bad review, but my experience was so bad it was almost comical, indeed we shared a frustrated laugh with the two tables next to ours. The main issue was the so called manager, but I'll get to that... Twice the wrong food was bought to our table, the kitchen seemed to have no idea what we'd ordered. We waited an hour for food to arrive. It was only sorted when we complained to a waitress who was clearly the most competent person there. The starters were average at best, mains were OK, although if you're not keen on your food coming with chips or rice you've not much to choose from.

The decor is tired, there are tables piled up making the place look like a junk yard in places. There's an amazing passive aggressive sign explaining why it's OK for the restaurant not to offer tap water... Weirdly displayed high in the corner of the room. The (gents) toilets are dirty, walls stained with old water marks. In my view, the state of a toilet always says the most about the management of any establishment.

And it's the manager for whom I reserve my biggest criticism. My friend told him our service hadn't been good, his response... "well you've got your food now haven't you?".. No actually, my food had arrived, but my friend's took another 5 minutes to arrive. That's after an hour. He refused to accept criticism, arrogantly shrugging, a look of disdain on his face. It's not as though we're strangers to the dining out experience. This was awful.

He was the same tool that tried serving us someone else's order. Lazily walking over with it then leaving it on a table near us while he shouted over to his colleagues to find out where it should go. His general demeanour really was breathtaking. He clearly thought he was too good for the customers.

So, if you want a shabbily decorated, shabbily served average Lebanese meal, go here. But you'd be better...

I had dinner here by myself on a Monday night. It was relatively busy in the shisha part but less so in the main bar area where I sat.

So first few things are, if you don’t like shisha then I’d avoid here as you can still smell it in the main dining area. If you don’t know what it smells like then it’s a fruity slightly musty smell. I don’t mind it at all but some people might.

Next thing was I popped to the toilet on entry and all the urinals were out of service and looked like they had been for some time. If it was busy I think you’d be queuing.

I had a ferrero Roche milkshake, with hummus to start and king prawns in garlic as a main.

Due to shisha being busy service was a tad slow to start with but was friendly and pleasant.

The drinks and food came at a good pace to be honest.

The shake was so good the two women behind me then ordered one each.

The hummus was tasty too and it comes with some bread so you don’t need to order more. It’s a serving for two.

The prawn dish was really nicely presented and the salad was really tasty. I loved the salad. The prawns was decent but potentially a little over so were more difficult to get out of the shells. The sauce on them was a good flavour but I had to ask for a finger bowl as my hands were messy. Usually that comes as standard when deshelljng your own prawns by hand.

My quips are reasonably small. I liked the place. They had football on the screen behind the bar (no sound) so could keep an eye on the match.

It was good and I...