Queens Bretford

Visited 28/04/2023 and it was our first time here, so not seen it before the much-mentioned refurbishment. It seemed like a lovely place to me. We booked online which was quick and easy and were swiftly led to our table and given menus. We ordered drinks and they came swiftly, followed by poppadoms and the mains. The food was really nice. We had Indian food and didn't sample the pub grub type food. It was classic Indian in one sense, but each dish seemed to have some kind of interesting twist. There was something sprinkled on top of the Pilau rice for example which had a really unique flavour but only briefly. My curry had some long thin sticks of ginger on top (see pics). But it was all lovely. My wife has the lamb passanda, and I had chicken karai, and both were superb. Spice levels were indicated clearly on the menu and seemed accurate to me. There were all kinds of layers of flavour within my chicken karai so each mouthful was interesting. Very impressed. We felt like it had a really good atmosphere actually. It was medium-busy with a friendly hubub of chatter. There was some music playing. The decor was pleasant. It all seemed clean. The menus were professional in nice cases. The staff were attentive and I get the impression they'd have bent over backwards to ensure we had a nice time. They called me by my name when asking if we wanted the bill - a personal touch that shows they like to make an effort. Overall we had a very nice time. If I was being super picky I could pick out a few shortcomings. Firstly, the staff were a little uncoordinated. We were asked twice by different people if we wanted drinks, and if we wanted poppadoms, and then 3 different people asked how our food was after it arrived. Better to be asked 3 times than not at all, but it was a little disruptive and they could probably have communicated about who was serving us. Secondly, the service was a bit too fast. We had drinks, poppadoms, mains and were paying within 35 minutes. We would have been quite happy there for 90 minutes if they'd chilled out a little and taken their time. Thirdly our naan didn't come out until we were about half way through our mains. I'd rather have waited a few more minutes and had it together. Fourth we asked for a poppadom each and were given and charged for 3, and finally there were no little chockies with the bill! I always love those at Indian restaurants. Those are picky little things, and I've taken off 1 star for them all. Overall a nice place which will hopefully become our local! We will definitely be coming back as its right round the corner and the food was so nice. I'd recommend you give it a try. Edit: came back here 09/08/2023 and things felt a bit different. They had new menus and they felt a bit more settled. The food was absolutely exquisite. I had the chicken balti this time and loved every mouthful. The issue with food timings had cleared up completely - perfect amount of time between ordering and starter, and between starter and main. However this time the drinks were a bit of a disaster. It was at least 20 minutes between ordering drinks and them arriving. Our poppadoms had been and gone in that time. Then my dad's drink was wrong, and the G&T's had no ice in. Second round of drinks were even slower, maybe 30 minutes. We ordered before our mains arrived and we'd finished our mains before they came. No reason to be so slow. My dad's drink was wrong again. That said, the drinks were nice and the food was amazing so we still had a really nice time. I'll be keeping it at 4 stars for now but we'll be back as the food is amazing.

Went tonight for family meal, 13 of us in total. Food was fab we ate off both English & Indian menu, staff attentive. Would go there again

Haven't been there for a long time.the meals we ordered were very good and hot every meal was very good and surviving spot-on will go again

First time eating here! We’re from out of town, AMAZING food, great service, very helpful, good price. Highly recommended

Fabulous food with really good service was very impressed.