Sanskrit Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne

Updated Review: AVOID!! One of the Most Unprofessional Restaurant Experiences I've Ever Had.

I'm absolutely disgusted by how this restaurant treats people — especially those genuinely trying to give them a chance. I’ve worked in the emergency services and visited this place hoping to enjoy a quiet, respectful meal. What we experienced instead was confusion, rudeness, and complete disregard for basic customer service.

When we walked in, the place was relatively quiet. Diners were seated, but there were no staff in sight and no welcome. We weren’t even sure if it was open.

A delivery driver who couldn’t speak English was also standing around confused, but eventually managed to get someone out from the back kitchen.

After that, we politely asked if they were open, and whether they offered any discount for emergency service workers — a completely normal and respectful question. They seemed confused and didn’t even understand the word “open” at first, but eventually told us to take a seat.

So we sat down and waited. No one came over to us — not once. Staff did eventually serve other customers who arrived after us, which was incredibly frustrating, but they never approached our table. We were just left sitting there, ignored.

We also didn’t like the atmosphere — cold, unfriendly, and unwelcoming. The staff didn’t seem very pleasant at all, they were barely present.

After several minutes of waiting with zero acknowledgment — no drinks order, no greeting — we got fed up and decided to leave. Before doing so, we took a quick photo of the menu to document that we were indeed there and waiting, in case we needed it for a review.

What’s more frustrating is that the staff clearly had no clue what they were doing, didn’t come to our table, and still served others who came in after us. Totally unprofessional. There's nothing worse than waiting to be served, only for others to come in, then get served before you.

I left a 1-star review based on that poor experience. And now the restaurant has replied by calling me a “fake” reviewer and inventing some ridiculous story about me using an “emergency contact” to distract the team. That never happened. It’s a desperate and dishonest attempt to deflect blame instead of owning up to genuinely poor service.

It’s also worth noting that communication seemed to be a real issue. Staff struggled to understand basic questions and directions. At times it honestly felt like a scene from Fawlty Towers — not to insult anyone, but just to highlight how disorganised and awkward the whole experience was for a paying customer.

We later read other reviews and saw the photos of the "food" — and we’re VERY glad we chose to eat elsewhere. We ended up going to another Indian restaurant just down the road and the food was absolutely incredible there.

Because of how I’ve been treated — not just ignored in person but then publicly insulted online — I’ll now be sharing this experience with thousands of people I know across Newcastle and in the emergency services. I have a wide network, and I’ll be making sure everyone I speak to knows to avoid this place completely.

I've included a photo of the menu as proof we were there. And honestly, I’m relieved we left — the staff just don’t seem interested in basic service or treating people properly. They replied to my original review calling me a liar, and then they tried to make out i confused there staff by using the term "emergency". Actually I asked if they offered emergency services discounts l.

I wouldn’t normally write such a long review, but being falsely labelled as fake by a restaurant when I did absolutely nothing wrong truly boiled my blood. It’s disgusting. No one deserves to be treated like that.

If you value being treated with respect, and want a decent dining experience — do yourself a favour and avoid this place. I’ll be telling everyone else to...

I don’t give many 2 star reviews because I’d rather not review a place at all if I don’t like it but I needed to share my experience here.

Upon arriving at the restaurant there was no one at the front of house and during the whole visit here, there hardly was anyone at the front of house at all times (in case you needed something, which we did) when sitting down on the seats (after seating ourselves) the booth was filthy with crumbs and salt all over the bench. Our waitress took our order efficiently which was great. We were given our drinks in a can (which is fine I don’t mind that) with glasses that were just pure filthy - full of fingerprints and dirty stains - on a cleanliness front, I wasn’t too pleased. We then got our poppadoms (after half an hour) which were just plain old stale - they had a crunch but you could tell it was just sat out for ages as it had that stale oily taste. We asked for a chutney tray but were only given yoghurt and mango only. Didn’t bother asking for the rest.

The fish pakora was decent but we had to ask for plates so could eat it (which were really dirty) - the cleanliness once again lets them down, it’s not hard to check before serving?

The biryani and the lamb curry were decent but lacked extra seasoning in the curry when it was being cooked and salt - it just tasted watery. The peshwari naan was the highlight of the meal, that was truly fantastic and tasty! As well as the satkora sauce 👌🏼 - the lamb was tender but just the overall taste was a let down - the masala chips were disappointing to say the least - overly crunchy, felt refried and not a great taste

I also have reason to believe that this establishment is faking positive reviews to benefit them - someone mentioned that the restaurant was not clean and suddenly an hour or so later a 5* review stating that the restaurant is spotless - and then a whole bunch of 5* reviews from accounts that are restricted with only 1 or 2 reviews on the account. Not acceptable.

I understand as a ex small business owner how hard it is to keep getting genuine positive reviews. Don’t fake it just to deceive the public to come to your establishment which has happened to us in this case.

Just keep to the basics. Good service, clean restaurant and basic standard level of food. You’re 80% there and I’m sure you’ll up there with the best of them!

Hope you see this as constructive criticism and that things can change for the better 👌🏼

Overall:

Service wasn’t overly bad but you need to have staff always available at the front. Front of house staff should not be loitering around the back waiting for food to be cooked and then only come out.

Have a clean restaurant. If the service between breakfast and lunch is too much. Maybe close for an hour or two in between to help reshuffle and get going again to make sure everything is clean and ready for service

Food wasn’t too bad, just lacked that extra spice hit or seasoning, poppadoms were stale, chips were just so hard, and crunchy - hardly any filling and felt like we just had the scraps! The peshwari naan was fantastic 👌🏼

Parking available...

Had a nightmare getting our food from here NYE! Preordered at 5pm ish for our food to arrive between 7-7:30 via Uber Eats. Uber advised it would arrive between 7:15-7:35 and the restaurant was preparing our order - the stated ‘wrapping up’ until 8:40 when my partner decided to walk to see if it was even open as we were getting VM when trying to ring. To our surprise, it was open and eventually the guy behind the counter - after telling us we hadn’t placed the order - found our ticket and apologised as it had been ‘sitting in the kitchen’. He handed my partner that exact food but I was under the impression it would be made fresh so I called the number when my partner was on his way back. Someone answered this time (not the guy who served my partner) and I explained what had happened and that our food would be cold as we were told it had been sitting in the kitchen - he didn’t believe that and said it would have been made fresh - erm how would the kitchen know my partner was going to arrive impromptu to check if the place was open, to collect our order, to make it fresh for his arrival?? Then he said ‘so you’ve got your food?’, snappily. I said well not yet my partner is walking back with it from the restaurant so he said again ‘So you’ve got your food then’ and hung up on me. Needless to say the curry and rice were lukewarm (unsurprisingly) and the lamb chop had shrivelled from sweating in the tuppaware for so long, all of our food had to be microwaved. I’ve got a feeling that this review is going to get a response from whoever is trying to defend their disgraceful customer service with a different story judging by the other comments I’ve read. My partner had a conversation with someone in Sanskrit who had been sitting waiting for her takeaway for half an hour as she had ordered it 2 hours before and hers hadn’t arrived either! And suddenly about 5 good reviews have appeared since the last bad one from only a couple of days ago, yeah right. Absolute farce. I should say we got our £2 delivery refunded - that’s the...