Mandaloun — Restaurant in London

The uncle who seems to run this restaurant said his name was Jihad, meaning something like 'righteous war' in Arabic. The only war here was on customer service and manners.

The bad vibes started about 4 days before our booking for 20 (made about two weeks previously) was due. I got a call asking for a £100 deposit. The texts confirming the bookings said nothing about this, but I thought may as well pay -- it's a big load of people and they want to ensure we show up. Too late to change to another place.

Then two days before the booking I got another call from an unnamed mobile saying that there's a £35 a head minimum for a big party like this. I said this wasn't right as this was the first I'd heard of such a thing, then the line went mysteriously bad and the call ended.

When I arrived 20 minutes before our party was due I saw how the table for us was laid out and asked politely whether we could split it into three tables at the back of the restaurant instead of one big long table.

Nothing could have been more of a pain in the arse it seemed from how uncle misery Jihad responded. He reluctantly agreed but made it plain it was a lot of trouble. Our party which turned out a bit bigger than expected made its order, but it took around 45 minutes and many other customers were served before us.

Our starters which were tasty came soon enough. But the main took much longer and we had to ask a few times for our dirty plates to be cleared.

We eventually got them, and the lamb doner had apparently ran out, so both me and the birthday girl my Mrs had chicken donner. I didn't really want that so it was mostly untouched.

The serving staff were mostly friendly and helpful as they could be, but seemed a bit confused. The Egyptian guy running the shisha out the front seemed lovely but he was high as a kite and agreed that this town we call home is bonkers.

Give this place a wide birth unless you want a cheeky little high from some dodgy shisha would be my advice. Uncle Jihad needs replacing by his more kindly and efficient little brother Salaam...

I don't write many reviews but felt compelled to write one after our experience... Terrible service and below average food!

We ended up here as Meat Co were completely full.

The young female waitress on Friday night perhaps need some training in customer service as does the elder male waiter.

Not only were our drinks spilt over the table and all over my wife's shoes and coat (which no one from the restaurant offered to cover the dry cleaning cost for), some of our food was brought out cold (The fried calimari) and burnt (the grilled chicken wings) and without the sauces they were supposed to come with.

When we alerted the waitress, she said the sauces would be on their way.

She didn't look too please to take the calimari back for reheating and made us feel awkward for a reasonable request.

The sauces that were meant to come with the starter never came until after we recieved the sauces for our main course (mixed grill). When the waitress finally came with the sauces for our starters, she muttered something about us having recieved the sauces (which were meant for the main course) and rather than just graciously leaving the sauces on the table awkwardly asked us if we actually need more sauce? Feeling rather embarrassed I just told her it wasn't necessary...

The halloumi spring rolls were actually terrible and the calimari (after being served hot) had a nice texture but under seasoned.

The Arayes was decent, a hummus shawarma (lamb) was also fine.

The chicken cubes in the mixed grill were under done and bland, the lamb cubes were nicely seasoned but slightly over done, and the kebab was ok. The chips were underdone. The chilli and garlic sauce were nice.

There are far better Lebanese restaurants around London.

Unfortunately I wouldn't ever consider returning to this establishment and would rather take long walk to Alounak down the road than eat here again.

I only gave 1 star as it wasn't...

Not an ideal place to relax and eat/smoke shisha. My partner and I thought that the issues we had with the service and quality of food/drink were due to Covid as thats when we had visited. But reading the comments below I have to agree with a lot that has been stated by other reviewers. My partner and I only came for Shisha and a mint tea and milkshake. After being seated we noticed only one staff member who was caring to the shisha customers and he looked rather rushed off his feet. The shisha was probably the worst my partner and I have been to and for £30 for a pipe it was absolutely terrible. The flavour of the shisha was non existent so we were basically inhaling coal the whole time and even that didn't have any consistency of cloud vapour... We had even asked for waiter to check himself - which he did twice and on the second examination he seemed to have replaced the head and use an air extractor but still to no avail. Very disappointed and confused with this type of service and product. The vanilla milkshake my partner ordered was frothy milk with sugar (or some sort of sweetener) again not sure what this was and the point of serving this to us. I'm not sure why the service was so abysmal (there were plenty of waiting staff standing around inside the restaurant as we could see them through the glass windows) but only one individual manning the outside lounge. Finally to agree with other commenters below we had to walk to the front to finally receive a bill and pay annoyingly we left with sore throats due to the coal.. I'm really not sure what mandaloun are doing with the management of this place - it was really really bad. Honestly wouldn't recommend coming here shame as its one of the only shisha establishments located in Westfield shopping complex....