Kalamaras Greek Taverna

This tavern is located in Bayswater, a brilliant area to eat and spend the day. But I'm afraid this is the only good point with this restaurant.

The tavern is on a basement, packed with tables with blue and white (like the Greek flag. Gosh!) tablecloths and plastic flowers on the vases. Old stuff that needs to be renewed. However the pictures on the wall are quite nice and artistic.

The food is not good. First thing: the bread was toast slices! I' ve never seen that in a restaurant before. I' ve ordered a vegeterian mousakas and I ended up eating a mousakas filled with meat mince! When I complained the waiter said confidently "This is a good reason to come back again and try the vegeterian mousakas too!" The Greek salad on the menu says it would include olives. No olives have been found though. The pork meat was fine but certainly too pricy! We ended up paying 45 GBP for 2 dishes, a salad and 2 beers.

Lesson learned: I won't visit this tavern again! Hope it helps.
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Katerina
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 2
Monday, June 09, 2008

A friend made a booking at this restaurant because she'd been there before. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The reviews on your guide were not very good, so I was keen to see how it turned out.

The place was dead on a Sunday lunchtime, but interestingly, the only other people there were Greeks.

The food was reasonably good, but rather expensive. The fava tasted how it should and the kleftico lamb was tasty and of a good size. The fried aubergine was tasty and had some texture and the skordalia pretty garlicky - just how it should be. Saganaki was good, but a little small.

My main complaint, though, is cost. £13.50 for kleftico is pretty steep and a small (500ml) bottle of retsina for £7.00 is exorbitant. The same wine is available in Greece for little more than £1. We didn't have one of my favourite Greek red wines because of the cost. I bought a bottle in Greece two weeks ago for about £6. In the Greek restaurant around the corner from where I live it's £16. It sells for something like £7-8 from wholesalers here. But In Kalamaras the same wine is £23!!

I know it's Queensway, but that's not excuse....
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David
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 4
Tuesday, October 30, 2007

This used to be an excellent and unpretentious little restaurant. We hadn't been since it re-opened a few years ago, but passing by thought we'd give it a try for old times' sake.

We wish we hadn't. The service was slow and incompetent. Our table had a view of the kitchen, and we could see - and smell - that there was no cooking going on in there. The menu advertises a charcoal grill, but our food obviously came from a microwave, which we could hear pinging in the kitchen. Against our better judgment we ordered baclava for dessert, which was truly wretched, and insanely overpriced. We also ordered Greek coffee, which was unavailable.

A sad decline. Strictly for undiscerning tourists.
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Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, April 23, 2007

Staff were mostly OK, but if you take away the novelty factor the food was average at best. Furthermore, one of the waiters made my girlfriend feel uncomfortable. I eat at Greek and Turkish restaurants regularly and have had much better than this.
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Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 2
Saturday, November 25, 2006

I went to Kalamaras restaurant before two days with two other friends the atmosphere of the restaurant was fantastic. the people working there were so friendly and the food was delicious. We had 'octopus' 'taramosalata' and fried courgettes as starters which were so tasty,especially the courgettes. our main courses 'stifado' and 'souvlaki skewers' were fullfilling our mouths with the taste of Greece. the wine we had was also so good. The music from zorba reminded me my vacation at zakinthos island and we left the restaurant so happy! I can't wait to go back.
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marsa - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 9
Monday, May 01, 2006

I visited this restaurant with my husband on saturday night, our first impression was that the atmosphere was nice and the staff were friendly. We were given a basket of warm pitta bread with a bowl of olives, which we found quite bizarre as we frequent Greek restaurants alot and normally the bread is brought with various dips. Our starters were brought, I had Kalamari my husband had Dolmades (a favourite of ours), they were delicious but before we were half way through them our main meal of Beef Stifado was thrust onto the table and the waiter hurried away before we could comment on the fact we hadn't finished our starters. The wine was also not very cold, and we were not impressed that they did not stock our favourite greek wine, St Pantelleimon. So after our initial impression things went drastically down hill. We will not be visiting again.
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Michelle - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Monday, April 03, 2006

Being Greek I understand what Greek food should taste like, unfortunately this restaurant isn't even close... We have tried almost every single thing on the menu and only two things are worth eating, the pork souvlaki and the tzatziki.We went back a second time just for those two and the Greek wine. We know that it is run by Greeks, maybe they should head to Greece to remember what Greek food tastes like. To be fair the service and the atmosphere is fantastic.
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Eirini
Sunday, November 06, 2005

I have visited this restaurant a couple of weeks ago with my sister. We both had a mixed meze menu for £20 per person and a bottle of housewine. The food was excellent but way too much for me. The service was good too. I will recommend this restaurant too my friends.
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Katerina
Thursday, October 13, 2005