Spice Rack Lounge — Restaurant in London

Below is my review from 2022. Here is my review from Oct 2024:

Arrived circa 3pm on Sunday, 27th Oct 2024 There were zero other customers. We are seated at a table covered in liquid stains.

We asked the male waiter to come over so we can order drinks and starters. Once ordered, and despite the restaurant being empty, neither of the 2 waiters (man and women) have any interest in providing customer service to us. Instead, he is setting up tables whilst she appears to be setting up balloons. Both have forgotten about existing customers.

Starters arrive. Popdums are great, chicken tikka is aweful. It is luke warm, tasteless and NOT authentic Indian. I should know, look at my Google account name!

By now, there are circa 10 table with guests watching football and 4-5 members of staff. Not a single member of staff approaches us to ask if we want more drinks or food. Instead there is a huddle of staff behind the bar, almost oblivious to the fact that this is a restaurant and customers need serving! The ethos here seems to be that if you want something, you have to go and track down a waiter!

We ordeded kebabs, which were actually very nice. We then ordered Butter Chicken and asked for 2 well done naans. What we received was shocking. Tomatoe soup with Chicken is the only way to describe it, and the naan was far from well-done.

I am now at a point where staff need to be told how appauling the service and food is. I approach the bar where 4 members of staff appear to be doing very little. I tell the waitress that my family and I have been here for 2 hours and the service + food have been shocking. I continue and tell all staff that no one is interested is serving customers and we have to keep calling for service. I tell her that the Butter Chicken is like tomato soup with chicken. Her response "this is how butter chicken is". Insult to injury?!

A waiter comes to our table, takes the butter chicken to change to a masala. My wife gives the naan back and asks for fresh naan. Chicken masala is the SAME curry they took from us but with chilli and the naan is the SAME naan given back to us, mostly cold and stale.

We ask for all if the food to be taken back and the bill. A waiter pleads with us to try one more dish and we agree. He brings us the curry in the photo, which whilst better than the first 2, is just another example of how poor the food is at Spice Rack.

My wife and I have our civil ceremony soon and we were considering Spice Rack for our dinner reception. We are glad we did not make this mistake.

I have been a customer at Spice Rack for over 10 years. My last visit was Diwali 2023 and the food was good, not great, but good. Sadly, everything is now downhill and I would not reccomend the food or service given this experience.

With so many excellent choices such a The Seven, Funky Browns, and Moka, it's hard to see why you would dine here. I am sorry to say that Spice Rack has had it's day.

Note There was no Wi-Fi available.

2022 Review Some of the bar staff are down right rude. Food is good (not great). DJ was awesome, however as it was soneones 18th birthday, the entire night was full Of shout outs to that one person! Not a great night. I would ask that the manager in an A/X top work harder for better standards and customer service or this place will always be a sub standard dance floor for anyone rather than a...

I went with a friend on 24/8 during the 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme. He recommended that this would be a good meal and I was well up for it. We came in and asked if there was space for a table. The hostess said yes, showed us to a table and then left us to use the phone. After a few minutes WE had to ask for a menu rather than being handed one. This was a sign of things to come.

I must note here that at no point were we told that there would be a wait for the food and drinks (even tap water) or that they were struggling to deal with how busy they were. Nothing.

We made our orders, my friend ordered just starters while I ordered both starter and mains. We ordered drinks and tap water. My friend's drink came after about 10 minutes. Tap water never came until I asked again. A beleaguered looking waitress came with a jug of water and two glasses and not only didn't offer to pour but she slammed the glasses on the table and gave us a dirty look. My mango lassi took 35 minutes and required me having to remind the waiter. Me and my friend were utterly bemused.

After 50 minutes all that arrived were two drinks and SOME of the starters we ordered. They didn't even all come out on time. The hostess at one point bothered to indulge our pleas for attention and reassured us drinks and food were coming right away. Again no indication or warning of the wait still to come.

People who came after us had received all their food yet here we were half-served. The food itself considering the high price was also bang average.

After 1.5 hours with my main and the rest of my friend's starters nowhere in sight we decided enough was enough. We weren't going to wait any longer. We told the hostess we wanted to speak to the manager. The manager came and we told them to send the rest of the food back as we are not going to wait any longer. We aired our grievances.

Did we get a sympathetic ear? No we were told incredulously that we had been warned of the fact that we were going to have to wait at least 30 minutes for the food. Well 1. that never happened, and 2. 30 minutes? Try 50-90! (depending on the dish). When I replied that this can't have been told to us, it must have another customer, I was told either I didn't hear or I didn't understand by the manager. The cheek of it!

While shaking my head utterly gobsmacked by the state of the service from a bougie looking Stanmore establishment no less, my friend remarked we may as well have gone to the shisha lounge round the corner for our dinner. The manager overheard this and, to his credit, although you could say this is the least he could have done, offered to pay for our bill. My friend was too prideful to take this offer but well at least 90 minutes later they finally showed some kind of customer service and good grace.

However, while I acknowledge the 'Eat Out to Help Out' offer enticed a huge crowd, it's up to a restaurant to manage that. And as I said, at no point did they inform us of the wait we were strapping ourselves in for. So even despite the circumstances, this was handled so, so poorly. As such, I can easily say that this was by far my worst restaurant experience ever and so worthy of the 1*. My first and last time at Spice Rack.

Spice Rack, if you're too busy to serve your customers, either tell them that or inform them of a 90 minute wait. It'll save you getting a...

I am not a sort of a person who would usually spend any time in writing negative reviews about businesses for petty issues but Spice Rack Lounge has really let me down. I booked this place to hold a community event and was offered what sounded like a really good deal, directly from the owner. For those of you who have been to this restaurant and know the set up, we were offered all of the inside lounge separated by the fish tanks, for our party along with a buffet and enough space to do some activities, games etc. After securing the deposit etc, it occurred to the owner that our booking clashed with Mother's day and he tried to negotiate on timings, kids meal prices etc. but since it was already agreed in advance and communicated to the whole group, it wasn't possible for us as organizers to compromise too much on what had already being promised to our members. Now on the day itself, the dedicated lounge had changed to a really cramped seating space for our party size of 60 people including kids. Ridiculously enough, they set out a row of tables with 16 chairs on each side (to hard to get in an out of the chairs next to the wall) and planned to seat young children in the sofas which are probably meant for waiting . The meals had changed from the buffet to servings been brought to the table, the menu had changed from 4 starters to 3 starters (despite of written communication of everything). No starters were served until almost all the guests were there, i.e at least 1:30 pm and the service was very slow. The service for the main course was extremely poor and we were disgusted with the rationing. 1 of each curry to be shared between atleast 4-5 people and even those were not served together, so people were sat there waiting for ages. They had naan but no curries, or had dhal but no rice!! It was so embarrassing to have chosen this restaurant to serve for our event and can not believe the "cattle class" treatment we got despite of such an advanced booking. When we raised these issues, we were given the excuses about the mother;'s day rush etc. but I am afraid, I don't buy that. You guys knew exactly what was our order, how many guests were expected in our party and you still couldn't manage the expectations. The least we expect is for someone get in touch and apologize for perfectly messing it up. Ofcourse, I will never visit or recommend this...