Sartaj Restaurant

AWFUL. If I could give no stars I would. The one star is for location only. Went here as it was the only restaurant we could find close to the theatre. I love Indian food. The staff were dismissive and arrogant and ignorred us and made it clear that we were a hassle - which should have been a sign. When the food came it was awful. Dahl so watery that you could see through it. The large size chicken curry we had was 8 perfectly square very small cubes of chicken (so probably cut when frozen or from a a bag) swimming in thin soupy curry sauce that had clearly just been poured over the boiled chicken cubes. The taste was bland. We were a table of 2 adults and 2 children and when we said we wanted pappadams, 4 portions of rice, dahl, 1 curry and 3 naan they said that this was not ok and forced us to order another curry. We said we did not want to but they said we had too. So we ordered the tikka - it was raw in the middle. Speed was not a problem though! We were in and out in 30 minutes - mainly because why would you want to hang around and enjoy yourself with this atmosphere and this food. This restaurant is taking advantage of customers. I can not think that they ever get a repeat customer so they obviously do not care.

9 years ago · via Google

The food in Sartaj is very good. The service we received however was quite dreadful. We arrived as a large group, and had our order taken, and everything seemed fine. But once the food started to arrive the waiter at our table became really quite unpleasant, he barged past us to get the food on the table, as there was limited space (which we had no issue with at all) he tried to put a fresh and very hot Nann directly into my hands! We were given an additional Nann which the waiter originally said would be on the house, and then 10 minutes later tried to reclaim saying he would give it to another table as he thought we would 'waste it'. When it came to paying the bill, we were not given an itemised bill, and were told we should have requested this at the start of the meal. In the end, after no offer to provide the bill as requested, we had to ask for a menu, paper and had to work out what we owed individually. This did not match the restaurants nondescript calculations, but the waiter refused to listen and in the end, we had to pay the additional mystery amount, with no explanation of what it was for. It was a very upsetting experience, and ruined the whole meal for me. It's a real shame, as the food was good. But we were treated so badly as customers, I would urge anyone in the area to avoid this restaurant, and pick somewhere where they respect their customers.

9 years ago · via Google

My partner and I dined here based on the naive trust of Urbanspoon's 87% rating. We ordered the Butter Chicken, Karahi Lamb and Sag Paneer with rice/roti. Indian food is all about strong flavours - that is, through the abundant use of herbs and spices, however the dishes we ordered simply did not have that. From each of the three mains, we could not taste any spices - it was as though there weren't added to begin with! The chicken and lamb were not tender enough and the roti was dry and coarse. Service was mostly pleasing, however, this did not mask the fact that it was a very disappointing and un-enjoyable meal. We hope this isn't the standard of Indian cuisine in London, otherwise we will have to pass from now on!

11 years ago · via Google

My wife and I stumbled onto this restaurant during the London leg of our honeymoon trip, we enjoyed it so much that even now, four years later, we compare every Indian meal we have to the dishes at Sartaj. We are heading back to London in a couple of months and are already looking forward to dinner at Sartaj, I recommend this place to everyone I know who lives in or is visiting London.

9 years ago · via Google