Coriander Lounge Indian Restaurant Southampton — Restaurant in Southampton

Absolutely disgusted in the way my family and I were treated tonight. I booked a table ages in advance for me my wife our three girls 8/10 and 11 weeks my mum and my elderly grandparents. I booked it for 5:30 so it wasn't so late we were intruding on more boozy weekend punters and for my birthday might I add. I stood there as they couldn't find my reservation. After me showing it on my phone and pointing out my name on the booking book. He too one look at my daughters and the baby and told me we are eating downstairs in the basement. We followed him down the place was empty. No music. No atmosphere and no people. Just a load of empty tables and buffet treys left out for whatever reason. I asked why we couldn't eat upstairs as there were plenty of empty tables and he replied with "we are fully booked" I stated that I booked months ago and we are part of that fully booking system not just off the street. So why can't we eat upstairs. He once again looked at the children and stumbled on his words. By then I'd had enough. I knew exactly why he was forcing us downstairs as we weren't the people he wanted upstairs with the other costumers. I'm absolutely disgusted in his Manor. I love the food here which is such a shame I got this attitude. My grandparents went back into to say this wasn't right and the said they had a table ready for us in the normal area but it was too late by then. Why wasnt it availableinnthe first place and it took a confrontation to seat us. It was already uncomfortable enough and I felt really let down....

TLDR; if you're a Brit, you might enjoy the food here. But it's a disappointing experience for Indians.

If you're seeing these highly rated reviews and are expecting to be blown away by their dishes, then you will be disappointed. We tried Tawa Tikki, Garlic Fried Prawn, Tandoori chicken, Paneer Makkai burji, and their 'special' Coriander Chicken. In all of the aforementioned dishes, we only considered one to be great and that was the Tawa Tikki. Everything else was very mediocre and lacked the strong flavours that you expect from Indian food. Everything we tried was tailored to cater to a more British audience and is a poor representation of actual Indian food. All the gravies had a distinct 'sweet tomato-ey' taste you usually associate with canned tomatoes and ketchup. Maybe my expectations for this place were too high, considering its high rating and great vibes, but I was sorely disappointed especially because I was really looking forward to coming here. On the other hand, the ambience is great, the service is relatively quick during lunch hours, the restaurant is clean, and they had the best Garlic Naans I've ever had in Southampton. Unfortunately those were the only redeeming qualities of...

My wife & I returned here after an excellent experience last month. However, this time it was extremely busy, noisy, overcrowded, and well beyond their ability to cope. Although the reservation was made 2 weeks in advance, our table wasn’t available when we arrived on time. While waiting, we ordered two mojito cocktails but 10 minutes later were told they had “run out” of mojitos! How does that happen when a mojito is just rum, lime juice, mint, sugar, soda and ice; nothing you’d expect a restaurant to have run out of early in the evening. So we ordered a couple of gin & tonics which were eventually delivered to our table when it was available. The cocktails could only be described as atrocious! They were warm, with less than half an ice cube in each and they were completely flat without any hint of lemon slice. One sip suggested they were merely gin topped up with tap water. Awful! Perhaps it was an ice shortage that stopped us from getting the mojitos. If so that should have stopped them serving awful G&Ts as well!

The only positives were that the food was as excellent as before and they didn’t charge for the faulty drinks, however the overall experience fell far short of being...