DeRoka Turkish Mediterranean Restaurant & Cocktail Bar Milton Keynes — Restaurant in Milton Keynes

We recently stayed in Milton Keynes for Moto GP. There are several restaurants near our hotel and we chose De Roka. My husband is a very experienced fine dining chef so he is hard to please and it's unheard of for him not to find fault with something. We were greeted by a really warm friendly lady and although they were busy and we had not booked we were seated straight away. The guy in our section was friendly and courteous and made us feel relaxed and we were given plenty of time to decide. The food we ordered was delicious, my fussy husband did not complain about a single thing. Because of this we booked for the following night. The following day we had spent all day at Silverstone with greasy overpriced food on offer. When we got back we were tired and hungry so asked if we could be seated earlier. The same friendly lady seated us straight away however in a different section so we had a different waiter. At first he was friendly and efficient. We ordered our food and when the starters arrived we took our time enjoying them chatting and drinking our wine. I did notice whenever he walked past he was looking at us and our table and I felt like he was trying to hurry us up. Then whilst we were still eating our starters our mains arrived. We said we were not ready and the chef took them back and put them under the lamp. My husband spoke to waiter and said he did not want that meal as his fish would be dry. The waiter then started saying how we had 2 hours and should be on our mains now. We had been there less than 1 hour at this stage. My husband disclosed his job and the waiter rolled his eyes and walked off to speak with a male I assume was the manager. This guy came over and was Friendly and apologetic and said he would make sure we had fresh mains. Again all of our food was delicious however the waiter from then on seemed irritated by us. We asked for a desert menu which after waiting about 10 minutes it never came so we paid and left. It is such a shame that our experience was tarnished as this is a fantastic restaurant. We spent nearly £300 over the 2 nights and left feeling deflated. The hospitality industry has been battered due to covid, surely its not a good idea to have customers leave...

I've never been to a place where the establishment was so openly prejudiced!

Probably the worst experience I've had at a restaurant. Came with a party of 4. Were seated right in a corner. Dozens of waiters, none of them attended to us. We had to wave our hand to get the attention of one to make our orders. After over 30mins of waiting, they gave us sauce and bread. Then no sign of our food and drinks. Kept trying to get the attention of waiters but it was like we were ghosts to them.

Over 1.5 hours and no sign of our food. We then asked for the manager and the waiter said he will call the owner. A lady came and we told her about the problem. She listened and said our foods will be out. As soon as we were complaining, the waiter who took our order, came running, just to give us some bread, which we asked for ages ago.

It came ages later, so now it was after 2 hours our foods arrived.

As we looked around, it was weird as I saw other Asian and black customers, just sitting there looking around and hoping for someone to attend to them.

I looked at the waiters and they were laughing, cackling, popping bottles and entertaining only the English, Caucasian and European clients. It was very eerie, the way they all were.

It was as if Asian, black and other diners of ethnic minority backgrounds didn't matter. It was as if they were given strict orders to make the English, Caucasian and European customers happy.

The food was mediocre at best. I'm not an expert, but I've never seen basmati rice being served at a Turkish/Mediterranean restaurant.

After finishing our food, we asked for the bill. Straight away we noticed they charged us service charge, as well as for an extra drink, which we never even ordered. So we asked another waiter to fix the error. He took the bill away and never came back. He walked past us a few times but never looked our way.

So after waiting another few minutes, we decided to grab our coats and belongings, walk to the exit and pay our bill there. We refused to pay for the service charge, as there was literally no service, as well as well as the extra drink charge.

Unless you want to be treated like absolute dirt and a total nobody, I would never come back...

I was actually a regular customer at Deroka, but was disgusted in the treatment my family and I received before and during our table booking for my 40th birthtime they were offering a 2-4-1 on cocktails offer. They changed this to Monday to Thursday only in the past couple of weeks. I emailed twice to ask if they would honour the offer for us until 9pm but was ignored both times hence why I am now writing a review rather than email my experience knowing they will ignore it. 2 of our party could not attend as they had covid so there was 7 of us, when we arrived there was no table for us. After about 10 mins of us loitering by peoples tables who were eating they seated us at a table for 6 which I told them was not acceptable and quite frankly embarrassing seeing we were a party of 7. Their response was we will put a chair on the end of the table which we accepted as at this point it was too late to get a dinner reservation anywhere else and nothing else was being offered. It was a very uncomfortable dining experience because of the seating situation. We were finally served our drinks 40 mins later. The waitress in fairness to her was excellent and explained that they were short staffed of around 10 colleagues and had over 500 covers that night, but yet they were still accepting walk ins knowing they couldn’t provide the level of service their customers deserve but still expected the service charge that should not have been added in the circumstances. We refused to pay the service charge, but this was more out of principle to the management not the waiting staff. The food was excellent as always but sadly this has put a very dim view for us to return to the restaurant. Not only that but when we left, I can only assume due to us refusing the service charge on of the bar staff who had finished his shift followed us out and slapped my nephews girlfriends backside taunting my nephew to retaliate before walking over to a group of his friends in the hub presumably to start trouble. Not what you expect after paying £400 for a meal regardless of paying the service charge or not. For me as a regular customer I think the restaurant has done itself no favours in encouraging any further...