When a celebrity chef puts their name to a restaurant, expectations understandably rise.
So we’re disappointed when we take our seats to find the menus to be tatty and stained, and a big cigarette burn in the table cloth.
We’d expect a little more care and attention to presentation, especially when the restaurant is so quiet on a Thursday evening.
The view is nice, though, overlooking the Corniche and the city skyline from Nation Towers.
We tuck into popadoms and chutney with glee as we wait for the first dishes to arrive.
The samosa chat is beautifully presented, with a huge vegetable stuffed samosa, sitting in creamy yoghurt topped with mint chutney and pomegranate. It’s delicious but the balance between sweet and savory doesn’t quite work for us and it’s more sweet than we’d like.
We enjoy the chicken tikka makhani, with its rich gravy, but we find it to lack real heat. We’re not scared of chilli, in fact, we expect it, and would welcome a few here.
The paneer kebab, however, is the star of the show. Huge slabs of cottage cheese are wonderfully seared and we devour them quickly, fighting over the last of the three pieces greedily.
The food is tasty but lacks any wow factor, which can also be said for the dining room.
