Melissa Restaurant (Edgware) — Restaurant in London

You enter into an area with a cooking counter on the left with three possibly Turkish gentlemen ready to cook food.

In that area are around seven tables, and a toilet.

Go to the back of that area and round to the left is another seating area, quite spacious with perhaps another ten tables and a further toilet area.

The restaurant appears clean.

The food includes a range of starters including sausage, borek, lahmacun, and a range of main courses including doner, shish, meat with yoghurt. All menu items can be viewed on the restaurant website together with prices.

Starters are around £5 and main courses around £13-16.

I personally like it if in a Turkish restaurant the person taking the order speaks Turkish. Here unfortunately not, so couldn't practice my Turkish.

The waitress was very knowledgeable and helpful.

However the delivery of food leaves a lot to be desired.

You get bread with dips, then some more sauces, presumably for the bread. The bread is lovely. In most restaurants you would then wait for the starters which would arrive together.

Not at Melissa. One person's starter arrives with the bread and dips and the other person's starter arrives about five minutes later. No announcement "here is your starter" just put down by dips so you barely know it is the starter.

When the other person's starter arrives, instead of the waitress doing what is done in most restaurants and wait until starters have been eaten, then clearing away starter plates and then bringing the main course, at Melissa whilst we eat the starter a salad arrives, which you are unsure what it is for, you then are told it is for the main course, the main course arrives whilst you are eating your starter, so you have the food sitting waiting whilst you eat.

It is like ten year olds have taken over the restaurant, are doing their best, but haven't quite learnt it all.

The food itself is very good in terms of portion size. Certainly generous. Certainly value for money.

However my starter was something I have had in other places where it has been crispier and nicer.

The kebab with rice is just the kebab and the rice, little effort to make it look nice, no sprig of parsley or something. The rice tastes bland. The meat is cooked nicely. You are offered sauces.

The atmosphere is ok, nice videos, a music video on the wall, nice painting of Turkey with mosques and the sea.

They don't offer desserts, they don't ask if you want coffee, they don't give a small baklava with the bill and the Turkish guys near the door barely open their mouths to say goodbye.

The food is good value for money, the service strangely unprofessional and a lack of class that other Turkish...

I went to Melissa Restaurant with two friends, we found the portions of the starters small and the quality of the food generally not very good.

The starter calamari is three rings of calamari and for £5.25, I would expect more than three rings! One of the people in our party ordered chips with his main but his side salad was brought with the starters - seemed a bit odd considering the other people ordered salad with their mains but that was brought with the main course.

The main courses were brought to the table , the cop sis and the chicken shish were ok, nothing great but the mixed kebab had doner meat which was pale grey, tasteless and looked very unappealing. I mentioned this to the waitress and her reply was "ok".

I ordered baklava for dessert, never before in any Turkish or Greek restaurant has the baklava I ordered been brought to the table covered in chocolate powder and chocolate sauce from a bottle - it totally ruined the flavour of the baklava. I asked the waitress if she could please bring me baklava without chocolate sauce but her reply was "this is how it comes". Sufficient to say it was terrible and I again mentioned it to the waitress and her reply was "ok, sorry".

Not a great experience, will not be going back. There are much better Turkish restaurants not...

Came here for Mother's Day - booked on the day over the phone and was told we would have a seat for 4pm. When we got here the waitress was rude and said she couldn't see my booking even though the guy I booked with over the phone was right there and re-confirmed the time he told me - 4pm. The manager then came over and did not address or look in my direction once, but LOUDLY said in front of me to the guy I booked with that he told the guy we should have come at 3:30pm, not 4pm and then just walked off... I'm guessing there was some internal miscommunication but the manager did not even apologise, address us or look in our direction. He was just talking very loudly ABOUT us to his staff in front of us which was humiliating. Eventually after some back and forth with the waitress we were sat and the waitress eventually apologised but the manager did not come or address us once, but was speaking to and checking on other tables. The food is lovely but the service and attitude of the manager is not great and they are not organised. The managers name is Chetim I beleive. A simple acknowledgement goes a long way, especially on Mother's Day of all days. He was extremely dismissive and a poor example of professionalism...