I just want to preface this review with the fact that it was opening night so I am sure the problems we experienced are not going to be a true reflection of the restaurant going forward (hopefully). So I do intend to visit again in a month or so to give them the benefit of the doubt.
1: First Impressions
The outside has been given a facelift and what was a typical pub exterior is now a modern black-clad look. The entrance had a very 'instagramable' flower wall and led lights with the words "good vides only". The only thing I would say is that the flower wall had a mirror in the middle so it would be hard to get a good photo standing in front of it. So a bit of a missed opportunity for people to take photos for Instagram etc as you would see the person taking the pic in the mirror.
The decor inside was very modern and clean-looking. It was a fairly small room but hopefully, that would mean you would be well attended to.
As it was opening night there was a female singer just inside the entrance. We arrived just before her second set and this was obviously her more upbeat set. That might work well in pubs but I think for a restaurant where you are trying to order food and have a conversation, I would probably have done more "lounge singer" type stuff so it was a lot more laid back and easy listening. Not sure people were gonna be up in the aisle to Proud Mary, mid-onion Bhaji?
We were shown to a seating area just inside while our table became ready, as we had arrived about 15 minutes early. It was very breezy every time someone came in as they had made the decision to remove the door that separated the porch entrance from the main room ( I would probably have added a glass sliding door for this reason). I can imagine the guest on the tables near the door to be quite cold.
There were two sisters who arrived just after us that we got talking to (Wendy and Gail). I'm normally rubbish with names but managed to remember their names as I said "Oooh Windy Gail" which I am sure they have heard 8000 times :-/ When we were shown to our table we realised we had a table for 4 and it was just for us two. We said to the waiter we would be happy to share with the other two ladies to save them waiting for another table and also help them fill space.
2: Our experience
After being seated the waiter came over to take what we thought was our drinks order, so I tried to order drinks. He said he didn't do drinks and would send someone over? Seemed odd as usually, the drinks are the first thing you order. Anyway, we ordered popadoms each to start with and explained that we were two separate tables, which took a bit of getting used to as he kept trying to put everything on the one order. We both ordered prawn Puri for our starters and then I went for Chicken Tikka Pasanda and mum chose Chicken Balti.
After a bit of a wait, the next waiter came and took our drinks order, we plumped for the rose wine. We again re-iterated that we were two different tables, but not sure it went in (I knew this was going to complicate things). It still didn't seem to sink in and eventually, another waiter came over and took both tables' orders again but this time. put them on two separate slips.
Wendy and Gails Merlot arrived promptly followed by their popadoms. After a bit of wait we asked the waiter if we could get our bottle of Rose wine, "Another?" he said and gestured to the bottle on the 'next' table. No that's merlot and it's a different table, we've ordered Rose. Eventually, we got our wine and thankfully mum had ordered a glass of lemonade too. The wine was vile, really really dry and with the taste you get wine has been corked or opened a while. I knew it hadn't as I opened the bottle myself (no waiter service to poor the wine or anything lol). Try as we did to dilute the wine with lots of lemonade we couldn't get it to taste nice so made the decision to give up on the wine. An older waiter asked if everything was okay and when we explained it was really horrible, he said he would look into getting Zinfandel instead for the menu (no mention of not charging for the vinegar we'd been given).
After waiting for ages we asked if we could get our popadoms, which again caused more confusion as the other half of the table had some. As much as I appreciate we hadn't made things easy for them be offering to share our table, it could have been easily fixed if the same person had served us for the night who knew the situation and where each table was up to with food etc.
When our starters came they were lovely. I'd not had it before but would definitely have it again. Our main meals were equally as nice. One thing for sure you can't fault the food.
It just felt very chaotic as though they had employed a lot of new staff but not really given them any guidance about who was going to be doing what. There was plenty of staff but all seemed to be wandering around not knowing what their role was. There didn't seem to be anybody in charge of managing things.
If I had to make one main recomendation it would be to allocate waiter a few specifc tables to manage so they do the whole service (including. drinks) from start to finish. This way they would know where each of their tables were up to, they could introduce themselves and it would feel like a more personal experience. recommendation. As it stands at the moment you either get several people asking you the same things or trying to tale your order, or the opposite and nobody is attending to you.
When the bills came, we explained to the waiter we didn't want to pay for the wine as had left half the bottle because it was so horrible. Credit to him though there was no argument he just went away and came back with it crossed off the bill.
3: Pros and Cons
Pros:
Nice intimate venue
Food lovely
Very local
Cons:
Service not very good (this could be teething problems though)
Need to source better quality wine
4: The Final Score
Based on this visit I would give Saffron the following score:-
I have given them an extra star as I feel it would be unfair to over harshly mark them down based on service as it was their first night. Hopefully, this will improve over time and I am looking forward to visiting again when things have bedded in.
The Star SCoring Guide can be found HERE
Proud Mary, mid onion bhaji. Brilliant!