Royal Pier Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Southampton

Shocking in every way. For what we paid, the service and product was no where near acceptable. £330 for 6 people, all feeling extremely ripped off. Staff don’t even know what is on the menu, even though the menu is extremely limited. You have staff who seat you, another to take a drinks order, but they don’t know what’s in the drinks because they don’t make them. So they send the bar person over, who can’t make anything. Another to serve drinks. But gets confused and to which drink is what. As if it is hard to get confused aa to what a bottle of corona is… Another person who takes food orders, another to bring food out, another person to ask about deserts, another person being in the deserts out. And each person doesn’t know what’s is going on or what they are serving to you, and if you ask them “what is this” they just look at you, eyes glazed over and say “I don’t know I’ll find out”. Food takes ages to arrive but are happy to keep coming over to ask you if you want more drinks. We ordered starters, mains and deserts. Starters came out with the mains which we asked for. Well the starters were probably the best part of the food. Tasted good and was hopeful for what the food was going to offer. But then when you went and ate the main there was so little flavour, all you could taste was rice with a hint of sauce from the curry. Extremely disappointing especially being a big curry lover myself. I think I would get more flavour from a lump of tofu. You should be able to taste the food you’re eating and this was so disappointing. We finished our tasteless food and a few wanted desert. One person ordered a trillionaire cheesecake thing, which we asked what it was as they had intolerances to certain foods. Their response of “I don’t know I’ll find out” happened along with, “here’s the whole box” which was straight out the freezer with the ingredients listed. Splendid. Very 5 star service. Here’s the box, customer read it, so nothing comes back on us if you die as we don’t know what we’re serving you. Awesome. Another person ordered sticky toffee pudding, which came out as a cold chocolate cake, and I can’t remember what the third person ordered, but it was wrong and also came out frozen. Each of the deserts tasted exactly the same too which is weird, as they were heavily splashed with a helpful serving of raspberry sauce. Yes that’s exactly what I want to taste when I order something which isn’t raspberry flavoured, is raspberry. Not what the actual desert is meant to taste like. The chocolate cake which was supposed to be sticky toffee pudding turned into a round of baileys as an apology of messing up and not being able to offer the pudding as they had run out, even though they served it to us as sticky toffee. But when the Bailey's came out they were all watered down which just came across as a massive insult to the group. We accept they tried to apologise, but then watering the drinks down, just goes to show they don’t care. And at the end there was rows in the foyer area. Which seemed to have some connection with their business. Very unprofessional. Extremely disappointing. Will...

I wish that we had seen previous reviews on Tripadvisor before visiting this restaurant. Our table was booked for 7.30pm.

We arrived at 7.20pm and were asked to wait in the reception area.

At 8.05pm our table was ready. We were shown to one of the tables on the outside of the room. Poppadums' were brought (not asked for we assumed as a gesture of being late to our table. We ordered wine quite quickly and this was brought. Then we waited, and waited.

At 8.25pm we finally attracted a waiter who brought an electronic order pad with him to take our order.(50 mins since table was booked for) We then waited and waited.

At 9.25pm (1 hr 55 mins since table was booked for) we asked a waitress about our order and were told that we were in a q and would be served "shortly". We continued to wait and muse on others in the restaurant who were also waiting for (bills, their orders to be taken, etc)

At 9.55pm after waiting for 2 hours and 25 mins for our meals to be delivered we decided to leave which cause a stink as "our meals were coming". Eventually, after taking our coats off and reluctantly returning to the table and being assured we would not pay for either bottle of wine we drank whilst waiting for "service" we sat back down again.

Two curry's and two rice dishes arrived. We have regular Indian meals in our town and these were sadly nothing special. The curry had the skin on them and was not hot and piping but by this time we were losing the will to live.

Excuses were procured when our bill arrived (wrong). a party was going on upstairs (we could see this and the way in which the owner greeted parties going upstairs with far more enthusiasm than any of the guests paying to dine downstairs lack of staff (we could also confirm this - staff didn't appear to have their own tables, and it was chaos)

staff not doing what was needed (see 2)

The bill was finally amended to a reasonable value and we left. We chose this restaurant on the basis of Google reviews which were either on days when staff could cope/and. or no massive party was going on upstairs. We do not live in Southampton and won't be returning to this restaurant. If you are thinking of going, buyer beware (and take snacks because you...

Ambience: Place is fancy. But its gets quite noisy at time which ruins the experience of dining. Placing for tables were very inconvenient and in close proximity of other tables. Gentleman at the table behind us kept hitting back on my chair each time he get up or got back to his chair. No offence towards him as distance between both chairs were so close i could stretch my arms and take food off his plate. Which also has a drawback of privacy. As guests are made to sit so close to each other that you end up overhearing each other's conversations unintentionally. Big turn off.

Service: Not upto the mark with respect to the status and stature of the restaurant. At first, table where we were seated was broken, it had a tilt towards one end. Quite annoying. Ordered double whiskey with water for first round. And when requested for drinks repeat, they gave me whiskey with soda (which they charged me). Shows how attentive their wait staff was towards their customer order. Ordered a portion of rice, which came with no serving spoon. They had spoon on the table for personal use which they expect guest to self serve from the bowl which is still ok, but when same portion is shared by 2 individual you wouldn't want to dig your personal spoon in a common rice container specially when you are taking second serving. And when a serving spoon was requested, wait staff picked up spoon from adjacent table and gave it. Least expected from a restaurant of such stature. Wait staff wasn't attentive towards customer. Completed our food and had to wait for good 10 mins if not less for someone to clear our plates. However at same time staff were busy securing/staking unused cutleries from vacant tables. Indicates staff just wants to rush back home at the mark of the hour and not pay attention to the guest present in the restaurant. On a positive note, staff were friendly and engaging towards guest.

Food: Average. Rice was undercooked and veggies wasn't upto the mark considering the price tag of each portion was high.

Restaurant needs to improve on many aspects....