Butlers Balti House — Restaurant in Sheffield

Never thought I’d write a review like this for one of our favourite restaurants but this needs to be published. Our first visit since the Covid-19 lockdown (we visited regular before lockdown spending a small fortune each visit) but we were absolutely appalled by the service received last night.

We booked a table last week in advance to ensure we could be seated, with the EOTHO we expected them to be busy but this was for a special occasion my mums birthday and she was the one most disappointed. As we entered the restaurant a handwritten sign on the door telling us a 10% surcharge would come on our bill for extra costs incurred for Covid-19 cleaning, fair enough.

When seated we waited 15minutes to be asked what drinks we would like - this being the only time we were asked for drinks. Equally bad for your part missing this opportunity throughout our dining experience. Poppadoms arrived, then not long after our meal did that we had ordered. The portions did indeed seem smaller than what we usually had from there but was ample. We ordered 2 dishes containing prawns and the others containing chicken. One of the prawn dishes didn’t taste right and the prawn were grouped together in a cluster very rubbery. We flagged a waiter down who fetched over the one wearing the white shirt. He stood over our table smelled the prawns and started to raise his voice arguing with us that there was nothing wrong with the dish. We said fair enough but were telling you she’s not happy with it saying the prawns do not taste right despite them tasting okay in the other different prawn dish he said I assure you if they’re off they would smell out the kitchen and there is nothing wrong with the dish at all it’s probably you. I was appalled by this waiter arguing his point at the table I told him fair enough but this isn’t acceptable to which he only then replied I can get you another dish but there’s nothing wrong with this one and that’s all I can do and dismissed our complaint. We declined the dish so he would move on as he was causing a scene in front of the other customers. Typically this was my mums dish so she left the most of her meal. Utterly ashamed and disappointed to experience this here and the complaint needs escalating.

We received our bill, paid promptly and left. Throughout our dining experience I observed the cleaning between customers. At no point did I observe touch point cleaning on the exits, toilet route or other cross handled places in the restaurant. The table clean down after a customer left was exactly the same that they would do for any other pre-covid dining experience in this restaurant. The seats weren’t wiped down or anything. It was nice to see the sanitising stands in place for customer use but masks weren’t consistently worn by the staff leaning over our tables to clear dishes or indeed clean down. Tables were socially distanced but the waiters were not respecting this. A very disappointing experience to say we incurred additional surcharge for this. Indeed, a ploy used to recuperate the effects of the pandemic but if you are not going to pass on the VAT saving, additionally inflate our bill by 10%, lessen the portions, claim £40 from the Government and then argue when one of our 4 dishes weren’t right when we are clearly regulars then you need to reflect on yourselves and be a little bit careful how you con your customers and indeed this Government scheme using it as an excuse to pass on extremely poor...

Utter disappointment, we order from Butler's regularly as our preferred local Indian Restaurant, however our order this evening was unacceptable. Firstly, we waited over an hour for our food to arrive, which isn't a huge issue on busy nights granted, however when it did finally arrive all of it was stone cold and we were missing items. We called to get a replacement item sent out which the restaurant did to their credit. We decided to sit down and start eating however I found that my Chicken Tikka Masala contained prawns and king prawns, which I can't stand. This is bad enough but considering shellfish are an allergen, had this order gone to an allergic customer it could have been, in the worst case scenario, fatal. We called again to complain and the person I spoke with told me they would re-send the affected items again, we asked what about the rest of the order since it will be going cold while we wait for the replacement, we were told, 'it's ok you can just microwave the curry', which I said isn't really an acceptable solution, we're paying a high price for food of restaurant quality, if we wanted a microwave curry we would go to the supermarket and buy one for a third of the price, also, reheating rice and cooked meat could cause food poisoning. Eventually I asked for a refund because we wanted to take our money elsewhere and had lost our appetite after seeing the state of the first delivery, We were told the only thing that could be done is replace the order so we felt no choice but to accept.

This experience has been so far from Butler's usual standards and we are both extremely disappointed in the food we have received. The only positive was the politeness of the person on the phone, Kash, the manager and the delivery driver both who had to deal with a mistake that wasn't their fault.

The reason why I have taken the time to write such a long review is because I hope that it is seen by management who get in touch to offer a refund and an apology, until we receive both, we won't...

Table booked well in advance and arrived exactly at the allocated time.

Waited 25 mins to be seated and then shown to a table designed for 1 person less than the group.

We placed our order and I then spoke to one of the senior servers about the table size.

He initially said he would give add the table next to us but after he realised they were only on starters he later (15 mins) offered us a different table of the correct size for our party.

We had delays in drinks and had to chase them.

We waited and waited and after an hour after our arrival we got the starters.

My dish was just 3 very thin pieces of paneer and the quality was lacking the normal creamy flavour and the quantity was laughable.

We then waited again and another 75 mins went by and after chasing our mains they eventually arrived.

My dish was extremely disappointing, 10 (I counted them) small pieces of chicken in a mass of sauce. The chicken was supposed to be marinated ( I have had it many times in India) and from the texture it had at most been a 10 min affair as it was not soft and succulent and the sauce was totally over powered by lemon to the extent of being sour.

After almost 3 hrs the bill arrived the bar amount was not itemise but by this point we just wanted to leave.

Whilst also there I saw a waiter drop a dish all over 2 customers, one I believe left as he was covered.

This is not the first time I have had a poor experienc/food and suffice to say this is the very last time I...