Piano Restaurant — Restaurant in London

To start on a positive note, the waiter who checked on us throughout the night was very nice, always smiling and very attentive. The food on the other hand was very over priced, not very good or of traditional Persian flavour and very small portions. The yellow rice on top of white rice was definitely not saffron and the rice used wasn't the typical Basmati rice. Instead it was undercooked with no flavour - the rice didn't come close to any Persian rice we've had before, it was awful.

We ordered 6 portions of kabab (3x chicken and 3x lamb) and 6 vegetarian dishes having been told the portion sizes are very big. We discussed this on the phone with the restaurant the day before asking for the chicken and lamb dishes to be served separately as some people couldn't eat the lamb and needed it separate. We were only given 1 kabab per person when usually restaurants give 2 per person. All the meat came on the same platter with only a couple of the skewers being chicken, with mostly lamb.

Poor communication and forgetfulness was a common theme every time we spoke to the restaurant staff when organising the night. For the price, this is not acceptable or professional. We had to reaffirm the number of people attending too many times as if they weren't listening and were too distracted to focus.

We also ordered 12 small bottles of water (very overpriced at £30). And some shots of limoncello that were sweet pink, probably pomegranate liquour not limoncello. We let the waiter know that he didn't give us what we asked for but he didn't seem to know what to do about it.

Even the baklava was cut into tiny pieces (1 each served with cheap Mahmood tea bags) and only a couple were pistachio out of 12. Clearly the cheapest they could do to maximize profit at customers expense. Unfortunately, that's not how you get customers to come back and promote your business to others.

We spent over £450 for a night we should have just spent with our loved ones enjoying much better home cooked food. We agreed to book at this restaurant for a very special family birthday because of the live music and table set-up but it wasn't worth the expense or bad food.

We were glad the DJ played Kurdish music too - thank you for the atmosphere :)

Overall we were very...

I had a very frustrating experience at Piano Restaurant.

My friend and I were seated, then given the menus. Much time later when the server came to take our order, she then tells us that we can only order from the set menu (thereby wasting our time as she should have told us this from the start). My friend and I obliged and decided not to make a fuss.

After being served our first course, we were completely ignored for over an hour. We had to wave frantically to get someone to us before they decided to serve us our mains. We also had to wait over 30 minutes for some napkins, after asking multiple times.

After our mains, it was pretty much the same thing. Ignored for ages, waited a very long time for our dessert.

When we were ready to leave, we asked for the bill. It was at this point, after having been seated for over 3 hours, that the waitress decides to tell us that it's cash only, and that we need to walk down the street (a good few minutes away) to Sainsbury's to go and get cash and bring back to them.

We thought this was ridiculous, as they should have told us about a "cash only" policy on arrival, and not well over 3 hours later, close to midnight. We asked another waitress why it's cash only and why we couldn't pay by card. She developed a hostile attitude to my friend and I, then asked us if we had booked in advanced. We stated no, and we couldn't see what the correlation was. She eventually brought a card machine for us to pay (very reluctantly).

Cash only policies are ridiculous considering the situation with COVID-19. Also, if it was a genuine policy, then we should have been informed of this on arrival. This seems very shady and sketchy to say the least, and I have never experienced this before.

This combined with the borderline non-existent service we received whilst we were there means that I definitely will not be returning.

The only positive was that the food...

Avoid this place it's abysmal. It was my first time & last time. Firstly, they don’t have a good air conditioning unit & the place gets hot when there’s lots of people and you’re dancing. I think they only had one small one at the entrance of the door & I don’t think it was even working. When we went to open the door for fresh air it kept getting closed by the outdoor customers as they were complaining the music was too loud. The music was loud to be fair but inside the venue. Secondly, the set menu is overpriced portion sizes are on the smaller side & definitely not worth 34.90. Food is average. Chenjeh was overcooked & koobideh was salty. Lastly, which is the reason it deserves zero stars is because of the illogical rule they have not to accept card payment despite having a working card machine & accepting payment from customers sitting outside. They want customers to pay in cash due to tax evasion. They couldn’t even provide a valid reason to why they won’t accept cash. Absurd in this day when even newsagents accept card payments. They have no customer service skills (quite typical with Iranian restaurants) but this is the worst Iranian establishment I have come across. They would rather have ongoing arguments about having to pay in cash when they have a card machine. It was a waste of time when it makes no sense. A good manager with good customer service skills would have said “its fine we are happy to accept your card payment”. Rather than repeating to my friend we told you on the phone it’s cash only & she forgot to pass the message on to myself. In the end, they brought their card machine. Kay our waitress ,however, was lovely and she can do so much better than working at Piano. The main reason people come here is because of their...