Cardamom Black

4 Reviews on “Cardamom Black”

• Steven Wynne

  Cardamon Black is a restaurant I have visited on a number of occasions. Service has never been great but the staff have been friendly and the food above average so we have generally overlooked this. However on our last visit, something seems to have changed.We invited some friends who hadn’t visited before and had a party of 8. Following drinks at the bar we were seated and that’s when the trouble began. They were quick to provide popadoms which is a nice gesture but these were not great. They were soft. We had to ask for the wine menu and when it finally arrived it took about 45 mins to see any sight of wine. It also proved difficult for the waiter to complete a simple request for water. It was then a battle to get wine glasses and water glasses after the waiter plonked the bottle of wine on the table and left us to our own devices. He eventually returned with a stack of water glasses which he duly left on our table. Not great.Service was poor at best. We waited about 1 hour between starters and mains after it took at least 45 mins for the starters to arrive. They did however keep us stocked up with soft poppadoms as I think they thought this would appease us when it actually made matters worse. The mains were not very hot when they did eventually arrive and the monk fish was sat on burnt onions giving a horrible taste to the fish. The other dishes were OK.We let it be known we were not very happy with the service (another couple got up and left due to lack of service having not got much further than drinks from the bar) and although the waiters appeared to be trying the restaurant was clearly over booked and under staffed. The response from the waiter at one point was ‘they were very busy’. The staff had no appreciation of customer service and we found them argumentative (later in the evening) and incompetent.Matters got even worse as the waiter had offered to take the monk fish off the bill only to be overruled by the assistant manager (the manager had gone in to hiding) and he managed to turn a bad experience into a much worse one. Things got a little heated with a possy of Cardamon Black waiters all getting involved insinuating we were attempting to pull a fast one.I have never felt so insulted nor have I ever left a restaurant frankly feeling angry, wound up and embarrassed for our friends whom we invited to this awful restaurant. The final straw was when the ‘possy’ followed us out and began to get threatening to our party.In summary, don’t waste your money here when there are much nicer restaurants to eat in Harrogate and I certainly will NEVER return ( as is the view of many other customers we spoke to on the night) and feel compelled to write this as I feel so upset. After all, an evening out with friends / family should be an enjoyable one and expect good service when paying a lot of money for a meal out. Perhaps Cardamon Black should value their customers a bit more with the objective that they might return and ultimately keep them in business.

  January 11, 2016, 8:32 pm

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• Dan Eidsmoe

  Fantastic!. I have been to many Indian restaurants and this one stands out from the rest. I am a fresh fish lover and a spicy food lover. This restaurant amazingly nails both with style and class. In three days I had two meals here. Both were so tasty that I wished that they were open for lunch too. My favorite meal of the two was the seafood medley of white fish, prawns and scallops. Cardamom Black is definitely worth the long trip back to Harrogate!

  January 9, 2015, 11:07 pm

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• John Baker

  Best in Harrogate. I had to visit Cardamom Black after friends and family kept on saying how fabulous it was, I love Indian food, but would normally drive out of Harrogate as the Indian restaurants available are very average. From walking into Cardamom Black, we were welcomed by a young lady, shown straight to our table, has i walked further into the restaurant, you start to realise the effort and thought which as gone into the fabulous decor. The restaurant was busy, there was a great atmosphere, our waiter was very friendly. I was impressed with the menu, again a lot of thought had gone into each dish and it wasn’t your average Indian meal, we were spoiled for choice, so the waiter kindly recommended various dishes. I love seafood and was pleased to see they had a Fresh Fish counter with a variety of seafood. The food is out of this world, best i have tasted in any Indian restaurant around the world when i have travelled. I can see how they won the award for Best Indian Restaurant this year. Dining here, was a total pleasure and i cant wait to come back. I can see how my friends and family loved it so much. I would recommend this restaurant to everyone.

  December 22, 2013, 11:06 pm

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• Barry C

  Moral Compass all wrong. In a nutshell… – Upon arriving we were left to stand, whilst waiting to be seated, for 20 minutes without drinks or menus.- Waited to long for menus when eventually seated- Waited an obscene amount of time for our starters, with one of the orders having been forgotten about. – Waited again for our mains to arrive. – The acoustics are such that if a family member was talking to me from the other side of the table I couldn’t hear what they were saying.As the bill came I suggested to the waiter that we might have a small discount on the bill (much to the disgust of my family who don’t like speaking up) due to the inconveniences which had occurred during the evening. He went to speak to the manager who suggested that as it was his (the waiters) area he had to deal with the problem. The waiter, who had been nothing but courteous and engaging all evening suggested that he might buy us a round of drinks. After some discussion it became clear that the cost of this round of drinks would come out of his pocket. Needless to say we didn’t accept the drinks and, one week on, management have not offered any reply to an email I sent.For this reason alone I would not eat in this restaurant again. This kind of management was practiced all to readily when I was 17 (many years ago now). The restaurant needs to address its company policies and look at the ethical side of how staff are treated by management… and employ a reasonable number of staff for a Saturday night.

  May 26, 2013, 8:43 am

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