Tandoori Nights 73 Lordship Lane

I would urge anyone reading the review posted by Peter F to ignore it. I was also eating in the restaurant that night. I do not know the specific details of the dispute. All I can say is that when Mr Hassan the owner returned having bid farewell he received a spontaneous round of applause from the rest of the diners. I have been visiting Tandoori Nights regularly for at least ten years and have never failed to be treated with anything other than courtesy and friendliness by all the staff. Most importantly the food is delicious and of a consistently high standard. There isn't a curry restaurant anywhere nearby that matches it.

I would strongly recommend that any residents or visitors to East Dulwich should give this place a very very wide berth unless they want to be abused. The service is worse than abominal. We were offered one table and we suggested we might sit at another. “No” we were told firmly and pointed to another. The menus were not handed to us but rested against the wall with extreme bad grace. After an inordinate delay the owner finally arrived to take our order. We placed relatively simple orders with the owner including basmati rice and mushroom pilau rice. When the rice was delivered we asked the waitress whether this was mushroom rice. She said it wasn't. I remonstrated with her that we had ordered mushroom pilau. Rather than just accept that a mistake had been made she grumpily left the table and returned with the order sheet and told us in no uncertain terms that we had ordered pilau rice. Eventually the owner arrived with correct rice. I explained how appalled I had been at the waitress's behaviour and that I had not experienced such bad service in any restaurant anywhere in the world. Rather than apologise he just told us we had not ordered mushroom pilau rice but just pilau. Unfortunately nobody at the restaurant appears to have been trained in basic customer service and the customer is always wrong here. When the owner presented the bill he was extremely personally offensive and we quickly paid and left. I indicated that I would never darken the door of this establishment ever again. After we left the owner pursued and further verbally abused us on Lordship Lane and described me as “arseholish”. He also rather strangely suggested that we had never been invited to the restaurant in the first place – we had thought the restaurant was open to the public – clearly this is not the case in this peculiar corner of East Dulwich. If there is nowhere else to eat in East Dulwich you might want to risk it but beware of the owner and the staff. This so-called restaurant is trading on its previously good reputation and I strongly urge you to give it a miss. I would add that I am very disappointed to have to write this review having given this restaurant my custom for in excess of ten years.