Tamarind

first time here and wow this place is good. Wonderful ambiance, stunning food great service but well worth it. I would say to anyone who likes Indian food that doesnt have to be overly spicey to be enjoyed , try this place you won,t be dissapointed.

We had the early evening menu 3 courses for £25 and I,ve paid more in other restaurants for food thats a lot worse

Superb!
Comment on this reader review

Jon - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Lovely food and fun ambience but portions were shockingly small; frankly, we felt as though we were having tapas. The tadka daal was excellent but so tiny it was like a chutney. The gajar halwa was the size of a fifty pence piece. Given the hefty prices, Tamarind really needs to increase its helpings. None of my family are big eaters and we had to order way more dishes than we would typically.
Comment on this reader review

R Kapoor
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 1
Monday, December 28, 2009

I visited the Tamarind on Saturday 15th August with my hubby and youngest son aged 13. My son had found a nice recipe on their website and as we were visiting London, he asked if we could eat there.

What a dissapointment! Highly overpriced and the food was pleasant and one of our dishes, the chicken breast kebab with ginger, was very nice but the other two were made with chicken thighs, grissle found in the bit I tasted! Hardly any flavour but edible. We were very hungry though!

You should try the Seven Spices in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport or the Jai Khatmandu in Northenden, Manchester if you want wonderful authentic food! No michelin stars and not very posh but the food is much nicer than the Tamarind and very very reasonable! The service is spot on too!

We found the staff at the Tamarind pleasant but the head waiter was too concerned with a large table of people next to us, obviously spending outrageous amounts of money, to be bothered with us! He didnt give me chance to give our drinks order, just waltzed off to tend to them!

Paid the price of his rudeness though, I knocked off the £12.50 service charge that they had added on to our bill! Not a chance of paying that when we were feeling that we hadnt had the best service! To be honest, I was going to tell them about the lack of flavour of the chicken thigh meat, especially as its considered to have the most flavout being on the bone! Never got the chance as know one asked how we felt about our meal! Too busy tending to the rich and unfamous!

I dediced that I would leave it at that but I really don't feel that the quality of food there justifies the cost compared to what we are used to eating and have eaten over the years, it was just okay.
View/Add comments (1)

Christine Perkins - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Tuesday, August 18, 2009

I love this tamarind restaurant.Fantastic food and you cant get better service than this.It is a fantastic restaurant ,lovely atmosphere,lovely staff ,a lovely place.I loves it.If you are thinking of coming to Tamarind don't think again because you wont be disappointed .One of the best restaurants i have ever been.Forget about the other bad reviews,trust me on this you wont look back.
Comment on this reader review

Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Monday, June 29, 2009

Some very mixed reviews on here - I was expecting the worst to be honest. I love honest and authentic indian food (think places like Saravana Bhavan) and my experiences of "posh curry" and restaurants with Michelin stars before haven't been good. But we were pleasantly surprised, yes it's very expensive but everything we ate was cooked to absolute perfection - lots of interesting tastes and textures and aggressive spicing. So I'm pretty sold on this place.
Comment on this reader review

Russ
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 4
Friday, May 08, 2009

My boyfriend and I went to Tamarind for dinner on Valentines day and what a catastrophic disappointment it was. I had read a number of reviews with various opinions on the standard of decor and quality of food but were excitied to try a 'high end' Indian resaturant that claims to puch the boundaries of modern Indian cuisine.

My boyfriend is Sri Lankan and we both enjoy a wide variety of Asian food. At Tamarind we expected to be delighted by interesting dishes that 'change the way you think about Indian food'. Instead, we were served a dull assortment of uniformly seasoned kebabs to start, the only saving grace being a tasty scallop which perhaps alluded to the standard of food other people have reported. Starters were followed by a barely edible choice of bland chicken curry, lamb shank in gravy soggy veg and pilau rice.

When asked how our meal was we felt obliged to report how disappointed we were on what we hoped would be a special evening. The curry described as tikka was defended as 'butter chicken not suitable for an Asian palate' by the surly staff. Not for an Asian palate?....its an Indian restaurant, and it didn't take an Asian person to spot how mediocre the meal was!

Sadly and disappointedly we left without waiting for desert, 3 figures poorer and wishing we had stuck to the less flashy, tasty food on offer in areas such as Tooting! Never again.
Comment on this reader review

Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

I visited Tamarind last week and was very impressed with the standard of the food and the service. I had the vegetarian sunday tasting menu whch comprised a very delicate starter that was full of flavour and beautifully presented, an extensive main course consisting of several tasty dishes, a small but refreshing dessert, and finally some gourmet chocolate and nut sweets. Even as a lover of vegetarian food I was amazed at how vegetables could be cooked to such perfection and tast so full of flavour. I have had many Indian meals before but this was definitely the best. The only issue I did have was related to a problem I had with the bill. After being assured upon making the reservation that I could take advantage of a 2 for 1 offer on the sunday lunch tasting menu on the day in question, I was mistakenly charged full price. Upon complaining to the manager I was refunded, however no compensation was offered for my inconvenience (the funds were taken out of my account and only replaced days later).

Other than that, Tamarind offers delicious authentic food and a wonderful dining experience which I would highly reccommend!
Comment on this reader review

sarah - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Friday, January 23, 2009

After seeing the chef of this restaurant on Gordon Ramsay's show, my girlfriend and i decided to go there on a special occasion. Later we looked for reviews online and had mixed feelings after seeing ratings from this website, but decided to follow our initial instincts and go anyway, and were glad we did because it was worth it.

the service and atmosphere were good, but the food stood out the most. Being Indian myself, I have pretty high standards about indian restaurants myself and am always critical of places i go to eat with english friends, complaining of over or under spicing of the food.

However, i was pleasantly surprised by the accurate and authentic taste of the food prepared by the chef. I had the sunday lunch tasting menu and the starter of tilapia fillet i had was sensational: delicate yet full of taste. This was alongside an excellent chickpea salad and crispy fried potato cake.

The main was a variety of dishes, the lamb was tender and spicing was perfect, while the grilled chicken was perfection itself, all of which came with dahl, aloo matar, rice, tandoori roti, and some mixed vieg in sauce (-the only thing that was slightly average).

My girlfriend also had some excellent vegetration dishes from the vegetarian taster menu which she was blown away by. This restaraunt is a MUST for VEGETARIANS. They have a range of excellent vegetarian dishes alongside the usual dahl and vegetable bhaji's. Her baby sweetcorn with spinach puree (saag) was very good and i also tasted it myself.

the desert of ras malai was very good, maybe a little small but i would not have been able to take much more after such a large main (as is in the taster menu)..

In all it was a good experience...a little expensive but it was a special occasion and this would be expected from a restaurant with a michelin star.

I can believe some people gave the food such low reviews, I could argue that some food ive had just as good but not better, but that was made by my mum and for free - thats no reason why when a resteraunt does the same but with good service and a high price i should give it a low rating.

and some dishes are just down to personal preference, i personally dont like chicken tikka - the kind that comes in a creamy sauce, because its not very spicy and not very authentic - its more like one of those dishes made up to cater for english natives who cant take the spice of hotter dishes. So i wouldnt order it, and if i did have it i know that it would be very spicy and would indeed taste a little spicy as they tend to do.

Id also like to know what indian restaurants you have been to that have food that is better than this place -because id like to go there myself and taste that if its true!!
Comment on this reader review

Dev Singh
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 9
Sunday, January 18, 2009

We just been to "Tamarind" a few days ago (January 2009) and were more than disappointed. Although the staff and service was friendly, the food was disgusting. The papadam looked like and tasted like nachos, served with unidentifiable chutneys without any taste whatsoever. The "chiken tikka" were pieces of chicken in plain tomato paste with maybe a spoonful of cream, the lamb was burnt and dry, the rice greasy. We spent about 130 pounds (incl. a bottle of wine) on the worst Indian meal we ever had - not really necessary in London, is it?
Comment on this reader review

Marie, Munich, Germany
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 0
Thursday, January 08, 2009

Nice food in rather plain surroundings. I think this restaurant is surviving from the reputation of it's former chef Atul Kochhar who has moved on to open Benares. There was little to hold this Michelin starred restaurant distinct from many very good upmarket Indian restaurants in London.
Comment on this reader review

Raj - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 2
Saturday, November 15, 2008