Turkuaz Restaurant & Bar Winchester — Restaurant in Winchester

We spent over £400 on this experience. If you enjoy slow service, rude waitresses, your conversations being eavesdropped on by staff, and being confronted over private conversations, then this is the place for you!! i came here for my 21st birthday to enjoy their “bottomless brunch”. in the advertisement, it clearly states “unlimited drinks”. It also states “No excessive drinking”. Please before you continue reading, how many drinks in 2 hours each is excessive? One every 5, 10, 15 minutes? Well, apparently one drink every 20 minutes (6 in 2 hours, for so called “bottomless brunch”) is excessive. From the very beginning, our service was incredibly rude. Our waitress, the bleached blonde lady, gave us no warm welcome. Not even one smile. Right at the beginning of our booking, the waitress told my sister that she couldn’t order another drink, until she had “downed the one she still had,” which my sister then did. (We were then later accused of “shotting our drinks”, following the waitresses instructions)Each drink took around 20 minutes to arrive, (the restaurant was ALMOST EMPTY, so no excuse for slow service) given they were simple, maximum 3-4 ingredient cocktails. I make many of these at home, and they take no more than 1 ½ minutes to make. Upon each order, we were met by eye rolling, scoffing, silence. It made our experience incredibly uncomfortable. Towards the end of our booking, we were each 5-6 drinks in, in about 1 hour 40 mins. My sister said, in a private conversation to her boyfriend, “the service is a bit slow” after we had waited 20 minutes for our previous cocktail order. The waitress was listening to our conversations, and ended up confronting us in an extremely rude manner; coming over and saying “what did you just say?!”. We then said, “I’m sorry, but the service was slow”, to which she told us that they were purposefully being slow, as we were “drinking excessively”. Apparently a drink every 20 minutes is excessive, The manager also came over and was extremely rude (to be quite honest, I didn’t even know that he was a manger, as his attitude was so aggressive and unkind) , he did not try to please us or make any peace, but instead he argued with us the entire time. We have all worked in hospitality, and all been taught that the customer is always right. No such experience here. We were told that we were expressive drinkers instead!! For spending over £400 our experience was the worst ever. the attitudes of the staff was abysmal. We were planning on leaving around £100 tip, instead we left nothing. I was so excited to come here, and quite frankly my 21st birthday meal was ruined. If you want a meal filled with bad attitude, cold and slow service, and to actually be insulted, then please come here. Otherwise, avoid at all costs. We were a polite and easy table, we just expected what was advertised. Never had I been more disappointed in a service. especially on my birthday. £400...

I went for an evening Meze with a friend and honestly it was lovely.

The interior is a nice touch to Winchester. It’s classy and a really mature vibe which is a nice escape when enjoying a cocktail.

I had a glass of wine and my friend had a cocktail. There is a big list of drinks to choose from and honestly their back bar is impressive. There was a great range of high end and cheaper alcohol to pick from.

The waiter was lovely and really attentive and a credit to the restaurant . He bought us drinks and helped recommend dishes. We got the sharing Hot Meze which had a nice range of items. The humus was lovely with pomegranate in it and the calamari was cooked well. For £18 I do think it’s a bit steep for what you get but you do get to try a couple of different things.

We also got Padron peppers and they were amazing, we would come back just for them . We also ordered some scallops which again were a perfect texture. I wasn’t overly keen on the sauce but that’s personal preference. I cannot remember the name but a pastry with feta in them is a must try here. They do bring you complimentary bread and a lovely Turkish delight with the bill which is a nice touch.

I do wish we had a bit more space on the table as it was hard to share on a 2 person table but next time I’ll just ask to push two together.

Another nice touch of the place is the social upstairs. After dinner you can have a drink up there or play darts which is a great way to keep people in the restaurant and again the decor is stunning. A really nice hidden gem in Winchester

My only criticism is not having the service charge pointed out before I paid. Honestly I would have tipped as the waiter was lovely and everything was really nice (food and drinks) but I am a big believer in hi-lighting service charge so the customer can make up their own mind - especially as theirs is 12.5%.

All in all would recommend and look forward to going back to try...

I was in a group of 7, we placed our order, but only my order came out. Naturally I started to wait until other people go their food. After 15 minutes I just ate my food. After 20 or more minutes other people's food arrived. I asked, as they also took my empty plates away, why on earth my food was so incredibly early. And not at the same time as others? I had also told them I had a dairy allergy, yet my food was delivered spread out across the whole table and I had to round it all up. They said, oh you ordered mesa, which are starters. No where on the menu does it say they are starters. The menu in fact states that they can be eaten like tapas, which are often eaten as mains. They also knew about the dairy allergy, so why was it all scattered around the table. I then had to sit here, already eaten, while the rest of the group eats. Their menu was missing vital information, and saying it can be eaten like tapas is misleading if in fact they only do it as starters. This as completely ruined my experience. I've had an apology, no point raising a formal complaint because any voucher they would give me would be wasted, I have zero intention of coming back here. It was very embarrassing eating on my own in a group, wait and waiting for their food to arrive. Mine was cold before I started as I had waited 10 or 15 minutes. The whole thing felt like a joke. I wouldn't recommend coming here to anyone, who knows what other information is missing from their menu, or who in your group maybe given your specific dietary food. The food was also covered in pomegranate, I don't recall reading this on any of the items I ordered, else I'd have asked for it to be without. So every dish, I had to pick it out before I could eat it. Why wasn't this listed on the menu either? Nope. Nope. Nope....