Mr Mangal — Restaurant in Norwich

We had heard and read good reviews about Mr Mangal so booked a table for a bit of a date night.

This restaurant is in an unfortunate location with virtually no parking in the surrounding area. Most tables look out on to the main busy Dereham road or alternatively looking directly to the bins at the back of the surrounding shops. It would have been more sensible I think to raise the level of the window frosting to obscure this. Perhaps rebranding as a more relaxed and casual restaurant would have suited things better and adjusted our expectations.

There is a relatively limited menu (not well presented) but the food was lovely and tasty, well cooked and the bread also home cooked and excellent.

The service unfortunately let things down a bit. There were lots of tables that were left uncleared around us for quite some time making the restaurant seem quite untidy and a bit unloved. The toilets were not the cleanest despite an early evening booking suggesting they hadn't been cleaned/reviewed before evening service.

I'm unsure if this is a Turkish tradition but slightly oddly the young (? Inexperienced) waitress brought our main meals to us about 5 minutes into our starters despite us not even being half way through them. Rather than return the main meals to the hotplate to wait until our starters were finished, she just started to try and make room on the table for them next to our starter plates. When things started to fall off the table she simply moved us over to a larger table (for 4) so we could fit our starters and mains together on it. We felt rushed overall and were out of the restaurant after just over an hour.

The quality of the food is such that we would happily order takeaway from here without hesitation but will not venture back to eat in unless on a more...

Wow I have absolutely nothing but amazing things to say about this place. Very clean, good ambiance, friendly staff, and most important.. delicious melt in your mouth food. I could not believe the level of flavors. The amount of food for £ is impressive. We shared the lamb & chicken dish. The bread is spectacular. Already cannot wait until we return!

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Updated Review April 2025

My partner and I made a reservation to show my family who was visiting from abroad our favourite restaurant in Norwich! We had been slightly disappointed in the past year but continue to be regular customers.

I am not sure if the past year has been a change in management, but Mr. Mangal is no longer the icon it used to be. The meat is still great but they have raised their prices so much, which is understandable with inflation but it doesn’t add up since you now receive 1/3 of the portion size you used to. We were told by the waitress that there is only one salad per table, when the menu states and has always stated each dish comes with a salad. It is such a huge disappointment for us. The bread was one of our go-tos but they also give you four pieces per basket now when before it was as if it was an endless bread basket. The garlic mushroom starter had 0 flavor. We were quite embarrassed as we hyped up the restaurant to family. The bathrooms are not kept tidy as well over the past months. Sorry to say but we will never be returning back to this restaurant. I really hope management changes back to how...

By far this is top of the leaderboard of the worst place to eat In Norwich by far. We entered no greeting no smiles just poor anyway once we was seated 10 minutes later asked if we want any drink I can understand if they was busy I can accept it however my family and 2 other couples in the restaurant. 25 minutes into my order I asked for some bread as the order was taking longer than I anticipated food came out with an item missing and that’s waiting nearly 40 minutes. Once we got our order I asked for some bread and the lady said you already had bread we can’t give you more this was very rude in my opinion so I asked do you charge for bread and she said this is England i honestly don’t know how this place is running a restaurant with staff like this. Anyway poor service poor food quality the only thing I can say that was ok was the salad and sauce. It’s a shame as a restaurant like this in the location it’s in should be packed out now I know why it wasn’t. Also out of the 50 downlight they have I can confidently say 35 of them don’t work. This place really is a disappointment I honestly regret...