Samad Al Iraqi Restaurant — Restaurant in London

Samad Al Iraqi restaurant – what can I say? This place is embarrassing, and I can’t believe I ever stepped foot in that place. AVOID at all costs. Even if you’re starving – trust me, stay hungry.

I had been to their branch in Dubai, and had a good experience, with the owner there being very hospitable and kind.

I understandably expected the same at the Kensington London branch, but oh, how wrong was I? and passed by this place the first time and wanted to have drinks with dessert with family. The place was empty late at night, but we were told in a manner unbefitting of any normal or even minimally-socially adept person, let alone someone supposedly working in the hospitality sector, that we could not sit inside, but had to sit outside in the cold for this. We decided to find another place, and honestly this should have been enough to put anyone off.

For a family dinner with guests who wanted to try this place, I agreed to return begrudgingly. I tried to call several times during the day on several days before going to reserve a table – no one picks up the phone (unsurprising). I tried to make a reservation via their online system, which said I should expect a call back to confirm – again, no call back was received. Seeing as it always seemed to be empty (which should have been a big warning sign!), I thought I would just show up and request a table. When we did this, however, we were met by the same rude male maitre d, who instead of offering a table in the near-empty restaurant and apologising or even at the very least sympathising with the difficulty in reserving, decided it would be the perfect time to showcase his obscenely poor manner and grotesque attitude. He asked why we hadn’t reserved, we told him we called, and he then proceeded to ask what time, and then what days, as if it was our fault for not calling at the exact time he was bothered to do his job by simply picking up the phone. At the end of this back-and-forth, when he was left with no excuse, he showed us to a table, again without apology or empathy. Was he forced to be there? Does he hate his job? Or is he just a naturally impolite, lazy and obstructive person with no interest in attaining a basic semblance of etiquette which he so clearly missed out on attaining as a child.

The place was dirty, but we overlooked this. We made our order, and the food arrived, although the service was not timely, and often some things were forgotten about until re-prompted. The food arrived lukewarm at best, some cold, and, while some (not all) was admittedly edible (I will say the kebab is decent, but not the best), it was nothing to write home about. It was surprising that the stew (already overpriced for such a tiny portion) arrived without rice for an Iraqi restaurant. Also, a platter was requested with the meat to be plain, without salad/vegetables. It came with it on the trolley, but they must have realised the mistake just before serving, so returned it to the kitchen (while leaving everyone else’s food on the trolley exposed in the middle of the restaurant), didn’t make a fresh dish, but simply scraped this off the plate and returned it to the table. Thankfully, this request was not due to intolerance/allergy, but rather preference, so we did not point it out – but if it had been, this would be unacceptable and to be frank could be fatal.

If we had not brought guests, I would have left. Unfortunately, we were forced to dine there at a ridiculous price for the relatively small portions and mediocre taste. Never again. The next day we went to the BEST restaurant and the contrast reaffirmed my belief that I was not expecting too much from Samad – Baba Ghanouj on Gloucester Road! Go there instead and...

Staff appeared unhappy, sad and unfriendly from their facial expressions. They lacked the skills to welcome guests in a friendly and happy manner. They would not make eye contact or look at the tables. I asked one of the waiters for the bill; he did not bring me the bill so I had to ask another waitress for the bill. We had the intention of ordering quite a few dishes as we do when going out to dine. There were also a lack of charging sockets. The only good thing was that a waiter plugged my phone into the socket upon my enquiry. We ordered the lamb kuzi, the Iraqi kebabs and the dolma, lemon and mint juice and a can of coke. These were too much to fit on the small table that we were offered. We were not offered any naan bread, whilst the other tables were offered it. The other tables appeared to be Iraqi Arabs and one table appeared to be White/White Irish. So we think maybe we were treated different because of our appearance - race? We were neither given or offered any sauces so our food was dry. The food lacked spice. The starter - lentil soup - appeared more like a main dish than a starter. The lemon and mint juice you can say was perhaps pricey at £11.00. Can of coke (330ml) was £4.00. The kebabs lacked bread or rice. The kebabs - there were 3 - cost £23.00. Because there was no sauce to accompany the kebabs they tasted dry. The lamb kuzi cost 25.00. The aubergine stew that accompanied the kuzi was also not tasteful. The dolma cost £28.00. And this did not have any bread or rice with it. It tasted a bit weird on the tongue. We wanted to order desserts and tea from the start but we decided not to after the service that we received. Water is also not provided - tap water should be provided to all the tables. Despite the service being very poor we were charged 12.5% - After leaving the restaurant I read that a customer does not need to pay the service charge if the service provided was not to a satisfactory standard. We asked for takeaway boxes - which were provided, but we had to do the packing. The waitress was going to take away my quite full drink when cleaning. The restaurant is in a nice location. The decor is not bad either. The food is nothing special. But the service is really poor. When we paid, the waitress appeared not to provide us with the receipt so we asked her. She put the receipt on the table even though the person accompanying me had her hand out to receive the receipt. Then no member of staff said thank you or words to the effect of see you again or soon, or even bye. It was the first time that I tried an Iraqi restaurant and I was let down by the service I received. It would be extremely difficult for me to try another Iraqi restaurant again. I was excited before going here after I had looked at Iraqi restaurants on...

One of the weirdest dining experiences of my life. Order wasn't put in properly (so we figure anyway). So it was massively delayed. We came in without a reservation so we just thought maybe the delay was from a swamped kitchen. Nearly two hours later we were asked if we were missing any food.... with no food in front of us. They apologized pretty sincerely so we thought, okay, just an off day. Even better is they asked if there was anything they could bring out so we asked for cokes (they offered soup but we knew we had a pile of food coming).

The cold plater came out, which was really good selection of dips so we had high hopes on this all being a hiccup. Then the main dishes come out, I had the Iraqi Kabob with yogurt sauce, and it was an excessive amount of sauce over a bed of deep fried pita chips. It costs £2 more for this vs the normal Iraqi Kabob which has onion, tomatoes and grilled peppers.... for just the meat, absolutely drowning in sauce. My buddies meal was brought out as a grill platter which he didn't order but he took anyway because at this point we just wanted to get some food and didn't want to wait for the kitchen to sort out its situation.

We start eating our mains and then a bowl of lamb and rice (what my friend had originally ordered) came out and they tried to serve it to our table, twice....keep in mind the entire time we ate we watched the bread in the kitchen hit the floor, tables coming in after and getting food before, the male wait staff were yelling into walkie-talkies while pacing the restaurant, waiter dropping honey onto the floor, dishes shattering in the back and at one point a 4 person meeting seemed to be convened behind my chair.

All of this, in the period of 3 hours and I was going to let it go but then, we go up to just pay and leave since the bill isn't getting to our table and when we get the bill, everything is on there, no discount, even the soda. Still, I'm willing to let it go but then, as my buddy is paying, the guy who is running this mad house asks my friend "are you angry?". We honestly couldn't believe him. My buddy actually misheard him as saying "hungry" instead of angry because it was such a weird question. If you think there is a possibility that your customer is angry, there were plenty of opportunities to fix it during the night, when he is swiping his credit card is not the time to ask. That's the only reason I'm taking the time to write this review after going with the flow all night, that question was an absolutely ridiculous cherry on top of the wildest restaurant management...