Roka The Square — Restaurant in Surrey Heath

I am embarrassed to review this restaurant claiming to serve good quality Turkish food. Firstly, this is the only Turkish restaurant on the planet where they charge you for bread (£7 for the same bread sold in any Turkish shop for 89p). All other Turkish restaurants I've been in, serve free bread, hummus and olives as soon as you sit down. Indeed, prices at Roka are the highest you'll ever find in any Turkish restaurant. For example £12 for a glass of average wine, £40 for the bottle! Prices from the menu are equally eye watering and no main dish is cheaper than £20. They have a terrace with tables, but they didn't ask if we wanted to go there. In fact I would've preferred it because the indoor space is very dark. Now, as I sat down and saw these prices I was looking forward to exceptional food and plentiful portion, in pure Turkish style. Unfortunately I was deeply disappointed. Their idea of food is something pre cooked some times previously (days?) and warmed up in microwave or oven before serving. Starters were mini portions of frozen stuff banged in the oven, nothing better than what you'd do at home with Iceland food. Rice was inedible, probably cooked the day before and reduced in a pulp. The taste of the meat was somewhat sour, almost rank, however, the portion were small and most of it was vegetables as hot as the earth core. The sweets were ok, but again, a minuscule portion for £8. 2 glasses of wine, 2 starters, 2 mains and 1 dessert £110. In any other Turkish restaurant that price feeds 4 people to Christmas dinner standard. I don't know what they're trying to do, maybe they want to copy Gordon Ramsay with his gourmet little portions and extortionate price, or maybe they simply don't know how to cater. Got to say, there were other 3 tables ordering only drinks, maybe they knew about the food. The cocktails looked good, but we didn't try them. The only good point of the evening was the singer and pianist, very good indeed! Overall I would rate this restaurant as one of the worst I ever tried and surely the worst Turkish restaurant. You need good food to stay in business. Don't you realise that on a Saturday night you only have 3 tables ordering food and other 3 only drinks? And many empty tables? I am surprised of the so many good reviews: either, people around there don't know any better, or the chef had a very very bad day, the worst of his life. With those prices they should serve the best Turkish food in UK,...

Greedy, ghastly service. I would neither recommend nor visit this establishment ever again. Having visited two other sophisticated restaurants with friends this month, this is the first one that had made me wear a mask just to walk in and sit down at a pre-booked table. The vicious little owner (I presume that is what he was by his arrogant attitude) barked at me like a dog for not having my mask on when I walked in, telling me that all the staff had to wear them (I was a customer, not staff - hardly a comparison). He then expected me to express marvellous gratitude for giving me a mask to wear to walk 10m to my table. As they were clearly SO big on hygiene, I was surprised to see no hand sanitiser on the table. Luckily we had our own. We ordered our food. Mine was a reheated Chicken lskender, it had boiling hot and cold patches throughout. The plate was scolding - evidence it had been microwaved. It was like fast food at premium prices: £17:90 for a re-heated microwave meal! I didn’t say anything while I was there though - that owner was vicious and nasty! No sooner had my friend and I had put the last mouthful of food into our mouths, had the staff whipped away our plates and asked if we wanted to see the desert menu. I wanted to wait a while - as I believe is the normal procedure in a costly restaurant. However, after being harassed again, my friend ordered baklava, which looked about as homemade as a MacDonald’s fries! (Being Greek, I know what homemade Baklava should look like)! Again, the waiting staff popped up as soon as my friend finished her dessert and we were pressured into ordering more: not allowed just to sit and chat. Having not seen my friend for months, I just wanted a nice relaxing meal and a catch-up. Not being big drinkers, my friend and I opted for the teas. To our horror, about 5 minutes after the tea was brought out (and it was still too hot to drink) the bill was placed on our table and we asked to pay ‘as the next table was ready’. OMG! I never would have thought it! Just a fast-food service conveyor belt. Disgusting for price we had to pay: no customer service, no care over the food; just get you in, order as much as possible, pay-up and get out. YOU ARE ON A TIMER. YOU DO NOT GO OUT TO EAT TO BE ON A TIMER. AVOID...

I went here last Saturday lunch time, as we were in the area for my Grandsons birthday. We didn’t book a table as we didn’t think it would be busy. The downstairs tables were empty! But there was a few people on the top floor and tables outside on the veranda. The waiter who greeted us said he could fit us in (3 adults, one 10year old child and a 2year old) he never took any details Down from us for track and trace!! But said we were short staffed so it would be slow. That was ok as long as we could get seated and eventually we would be eating. We went here as my daughter had read the reviews and it sounded great. We all picked the lunch time deal which was £12.50 per person the shush chicken was delicious but it also comes with bulgar rice which wasn’t anything special. Would prefer if they offered plain white rice. The dessert was included with the lunch deal ,normally comes with ice cream with Bakava but the waiter mentioned that they had run out of Bakava and offers us cheesecake/chocolate brownie/sticky toffee pudding which definitely was delicious. Would we go there again? No I don’t think we would as I’ve tasted so much better in other Turkish restaurants. The service was slow ( but we knew it would be) and I waited ages for a glass of tap water! Even though I had asked a few times for it. Also there was a service charge on the bill, which is very annoying as there was only three adults and one child..... most people will leave a tip if they are happy with...