Carmel

Nice, quaint spot for brunch near Queen’s park. Food was nicely presented, fresh and delicious. The outdoor seating can be hit-or-miss however, with some awkward placement and slopes. Overall pleasant atmosphere.

The food is great. The flatbread is freshly made and served with very nice tahini sauce. A very nice place on a sunny day. A lot of vegetarian dishes.

Nice mezze selection comprising tahini, baba ghanoush, labneh, grated tomato and a freshly baked flatbread. This was largely delicious, especially the grated tomato and labneh when taken together. The mains on the other hand were rather disappointing. Urfa chilli chicken was served lukewarm and was generally under-seasoned. Grilled spring onion dish was likewise pretty bland. Prawns with ‘nduja must have had the most scant quotient of this spicy sausage paste, as I was all but unable to register any chilli heat. Moreover, this dish was also bland, and 3 prawns for in excess of £20 I found to be on the parsimonious side. Staff did not ask if we enjoyed the food. To be honest, wouldn’t be back.

Booked here for a brunch, after reading so many positive reviews I was super keen to try. Sadly though the service did not meet my expectations. The food was nice but there wasn't a lot of meat options on the menu it was quite veggie based. Would be nice if they included more meat dishes. I went for the Shakshuka. It was nicely presented but the mint was slightly overpowering for my liking.My friend had the tea salmon dish which was very small for the price. (Only 1 slice of salmon 2 chopped up boiled eggs and 2 slice of bread. Definitely needed more to bulk it out) The service however ruined the experience for us. We kept having to prompt the waitress to come over and take our food/drinks order. Everything we asked for felt like too much trouble. The waitress messed up my lemonade order and forgotten to put it though on the system. She blamed the kitchen staff for this which was odd to me because the kitchen staff weren't making the drinks. When we asked for the bill, our waitress placed a QR code on the table. This felt odd and impersonal as we were expected to pay for our food through an app that the QR code directed us to. When I asked the waitress they said that paper bills are only given on request. I explained to the waitress that we would not be paying the 12.5 per cent service charge as we had a disappointing experience. Later a more senior waitress came over and asked for feedback. We explained we thought the service was not up to a 12.5% service charge standard because we had to prompt our waitress for everything. She explained this waitress was in training but to me this seemed like an excuse. After hearing our feedback the waitress agreed to knock off the service charge. I got the vibe that the restaurant receives a lot of positive reviews so they do not like it when someone gives constructive criticism. We finally paid and we were enjoying the rest of our drinks when another waitress came over to say that they needed our table in 10 minutes. She rolled her eyes at us and muttered under her breath that it was "good" we knew this. I not one to complain but I did find the bad attitudes of the waitress unacceptable. If you're looking for a cute brunch place I would highly recommend the milk beach cafe next door. They have lovely service and great food at a reasonable price