Spice Lounge — Restaurant in Oxford

We were passing through Oxford on our way back from Swindon and found the Spice Lounge courtesy of trip advisor. First impressions are OK, it was early Saturday night and unsurprisingly the restaurant dad a bit quiet given Covid and the high temperatures at the moment. Good Covid measures are in place which they were reassuringly taking seriously. The service was as good as it could be with our waiters wearing full face masks. It is a pleasant dining room but I reckon it could get quite noisy if there was a loud party or two given the hard surfaces and lack of soft furnishings. The menu is your typical Bangladeshi offering a bit limited and nothing different apart from the chicken garam masalla which I had not seen before. The onion bhajis at three tiddlers for over a fiver were pound for pound the most expensive I have eaten. I went for the garam masalla chicken as it was alegedly their most flavoursome dish. It was nice, great chicken but the sauce was a bit thin for my taste. I actually preferred the taste and texture of the wife's balti, she thought it was excellent but it was also a bit oily. No complaint with the sides, the naan better than the rice. Being from the midlands, the bill was very expensive for what we had, I know we are in Oxford but even so! It didn't end well when I was asked by the waiter if I would like to leave a tip, I usually do but never when asked.

All in all not a bad evening and I would be more than...

I don’t tend to write negative reviews of places, but I’m deeply unhappy with this restaurant.

The service was extremely bad. The waiter took over half an hour to take our order, despite us asking several times. The food was slow to come as well, meaning we were at the restaurant for over two hours.

The food itself was disappointing. We ordered a range of curries (madras, jalfrezi, roghan, saag aloo) and to be honest, they all tasted very similar. Mostly of garlic, tomato paste and cream/yogurt. The saag aloo was the best. Then the roti was dry and bland.

All in all this experience struck me as the kind of generic British-Indian cuisine that doesn’t do justice to the richness of the culture it purports to serve, and then overcharges for the experience.

The obligatory service charge at the end felt like a slap in the face given how poor everything was. I won’t be coming back, and I recommend that you find better alternatives in Oxford, as they...

I have dined in to this below average restaurant and I was going to leave a review a few weeks ago. I am looking for the option to leave ZERO STARS! Unfortunately, there is no option. The food is of poor quality, nothing authentic about it and the temperature of the food was cold. The starters seemed stale as it looked precooked...they definitely serve reheated and nothing fresh. The spice levels is not upto the authentic Indian standards. Such a waste of money! These people do not know how to cook and the service wasn't great either. There is a manager/owner running around like a hen and smiling because he knows he's robbing people. As a food critic, my only recommendation for this place is to come here to burn your money out or purposely give out charity. There are many restaurants in London, Lancashire, Northamptonshire even the curry capital Brick Lane is much more recommended! AVOID...