Cafe Le Raj Henley — Restaurant in South Oxfordshire

Avoid ! If you don't fancy dysentry, repeated violent vomitting & 3 days of diarrhoea like other customer reviewers & I had immediately after eating here, I felt very ill & couldn't eat for 3 days afterwards, been feeling very fragile with very dodgy, unpredictable stomach & bowels, haven't been able to go anywhere or function as normal, not even down the road cos need to be near a toilet at all times for days after this & was washed out for 1st day, had to sleep loads to recover, constantly interrupted by the stomach upset ! The worst £79 I ever spent ! I do not like this place for a number of other reasons too : my friends & I arrived in Henley on Thames on Tuesday evening 04 th July '23 & were hungry so looked up online for local takeaways, we found Chinese to be closed but 2 Indian restaurants stated they were open until 23:30 hrs so we spent some te parousung their menu & decided what we'd like & compiled a sizeable order on a notepad, we telephoned them & a man answered & said they'd closed before their advertised opening times, there's more ... so we made a snack meal instead, the next evening my friends wanted to go to this restaurant because they'd had their hearts set on it, we tried to locate the place using Google maps but couldn't find it, we passed some people sitting outside on a main street in Henley & 2 nice, helpful, friendly men said they know this restaurant, that it's their favourite, "the best in Henley" & regular customers there for 12 years! They advised we mention their names to get a discount &/or a free complimentary shot of Bailey's liqueur each, they directed us & we...

The signs were there.

The place was empty when we arrived at 2230 on regatta Tuesday. We were welcomed by a waiter who gave us the impression that we were intruding.

Undeterred, we went in to an empty restaurant. I felt for them and really wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. The starter was good and the mains turned up after a bit of a wait. Excusable if they were busy but there were only a few walk in takeaway orders.

We started on our main course but at 2250 we were told, not asked, to eat up quickly because they were closing at 2300. The clear implication was that we had to be gone by 2300.

Clearly there was no way we could enjoy our food in ten minutes. We informed the waiter that this was unreasonable at which point he raised his voice to an excessive level and my wife, who felt intimidated by this, raised hers.

At that point a very upsetting shouting match started between the waiter and my wife taking us way past 2300. We ended up paying in full for our meal but we had barely started it, so well done le Raj - you got your money but you have left some very upset ex-diners.

We will never go there again, and ask anyone reading this to think again before going in.

Honestly, it's...

First time trying this place. The service I found to be quite rude and abrupt, being made to feel like an inconvenience asking about different items on the menu, despite the restaurant being completely empty, makes me wonder why these guys are working in the hospitality industry!? Asking for a glass of water and being offered a half empty bottle of mineral water which had been taken off another customers’ table was laughable. Settled for the tap water in the end! However, the food was wonderful. The duck tikka and the lamb samosas were extremely well cooked, super tasty. But the lime pickle was like nothing I’ve tasted before - so incredibly incredible I can’t even describe how incredible it was. I think I’ll be slathering it on everything from now on! Despite the questionable service, and the coldness of the staff, I’ll be back to try other meals as the food...