Banyan On Thames

I ate here while staying at the hotel last year. It was Saturday night and I was dining alone, so was a bit apprehensive. The staff however were lovely and I got a seat next to the window. I had 50% off my meal which made it very affordable; not sure I would have wanted to pay double, but I enjoyed what I had. Often when I’m eating alone, I eat quickly and tend not to have 3 courses, but felt very comfortable in the hands of the capable and friendly waiters and waitresses. The food was good, if not exceptional and they had a good range of wines. Would like to go back during the day as the view out onto to the Thames is very pleasant.

Terrible.
So I went with a tastecard so it’s not unusual not to have access to the whole menu based on that — but the menu is actually laid out with tastecard users in mind (tacky!) because items are starred with small print about paying extra for them due to expensive ingredients. Makes the restaurant seem so cheap and amateur! Why not just include the excess in the price and have a whole other menu for tastecard users?! Also it’s riddled with spelling mistakes.
I had a fish course — no sides, just a largely unprepared fish complete with head and bones. Difficult to eat and freaked me out, I HATE fish that is presented that way.
Even with 50% off (well unless you order a starred item!) I felt ripped off. Service was also rubbish. Had to ask for the bill twice. This restaurant has a nice view of the river but nothing else going for it it at all.
And the décor of the hotel which you have to walk through is so tacky — like sort of Arab bling but not even well done.

Hmmm… Banyan on Thames restaurant… a hard one to rate.
I took my other half to this restaurant having purchased the TravelZoo voucher (£35 for 2 3course meals, fantastic deal btw). On arrival to the hotel Rafayel at 8pm, the sun still shining and slowly setting which made the hotel look really really beautful. We walked through the hotel lobby to the restaurant (very odd deco tbh, kind of a mish mash of monuments from different cultures across Asia) and into the Banyan restaurant.
The restaurant’s atmosphere and design was very stylish, a tad smaller than what I was expecting but nevertheless very nice and definately looked like a 5* hotel restaurant. We were quickly seated by one of the senior waiters (or perhaps manager?) who forgot how to smile but was very professional (too professional?). I quickly forgot about that when I saw the view of the river and sunset from our seat right next to the window. Fan-​tas-​tic.
First thing I noticed on sitting down was the cutlery and wine glasses… they were still a little bit dirty looking. I dont mean with morsels of dry food still attached, but tarnished with water spots making them look out of place in this divine looking restaurant. Anyways onto the food ordering: So for starters I ordered the Foie Gras and my partner ordered the Crab Salad. My Foie Gras was OK, it did taste a little bit too cold and harder than expected (I imagine it had just been taken out of the fridge not long ago) but the texture was very smooth and light. The little triangles of toasted bread were very tasty and morish! :) The blackcurrant sauce was a nice touch too, not too sweet and just sour enough to complement the paté. I only managed to steal 1 mouthful of crab from the missus, but the taste was very fresh and seasoned well. She gave it her approval so I’m assuming the dish was good.
For main I went for the pompously named «Mongolian Warrior Lamb» and the other half went for the Fillet Steak option (costs £4 extra with the voucher). I’ll start with the steak as that was one of the highlights of the evening — perfectly cooked, and every mouthful was an absolute melt-​in-​your-​mouth experience. It was complimented with some green beans and a creamy potato sauce (my terminology does the dish no justice: p) as well as a jug of sauce made from the steak’s juices I believe. By warrior arrived in a small pot that looked like pretty standard Indian curry dish next to an even smaller pot of coconut flavoured rice. The rice was very nice, aromatic and the coconut flavour was subtle enough not to overpower. The warrior however was OK. Felt more like a Lamb (on the bone) Rogan Josh with ginger. It was tasty, but just a bit underwhelming as I was expecting, I dunno, maybe like a huge hunk of leg of carcass with a name like Mongolian Warrior Lamb.
Onto desserts. I went for the «Opera cake» with coffee sauce and coffee icecream and missus went for «crème brûlée citronelle». This time round, my one was nicer :) 4 precisely cut square segments of cake beautifully presented next to a scoop of ice cream and stylishly drizzled with the choc/​coffee sauce. Taste was absolutely fantastic. If you’re a coffee drinker you will enjoy this doublely! The crème brûlée was a bit of a strange one. Brulee at the bottom of the bowl, followed by a layer of berry fruits in sauce finished with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Taste was OK, just not very excited or well presented. The bowl was pretty cool however as it was a normal looking bowl but made so that it stands crooked :)
Servicewise — this is where it let the experience down. Our waiter/​manager did not smile once. It got to a point where I was starting to think whether he was trained to specifically not smile or whether he’d just been dumped by his girlfriend that morning. Who knows. Another lady waitress who served me my Asahi beer did not crack a smile either, so I thought perhaps it was just a «cool nuevo fusion restaurant service look» that they were brandishing. Strangely however, the 1 waiter who took our bill was the friendliest, all smile’s and thank you’s so I imagine it was just the first 2 waiter/​waitresses who were having a bad day. Maybe they were seeing each other and had a tiff?
Also it does need to be noted, that there was a genuine feeling that we recieved a second rate service due to the TravelZoo voucher. I could see that 2 other tables (drinking Veuve Cliquot, ooh la la!) were being looked after much better than us. So much so we had to physically wave down our waiter to come to us so we could order more of our poor people’s drinks.
Price-​wise, (ignoring the voucher deal) I think Banyan is fair. Starters are around £8, Mains £12−28, Desserts £7.50, beer £4, cocktails £9 and wine ranging from £20 and above.
Would I recommend this restaurant? As a regular place to fine-​dine possibly but there are better places. As a one off experience to sample the beautiful view and good food, definately.

Banyan is an interesting restaurant as it can be either dressed up for an elegant dinner or down for a more casual affair. Located on the Thames it offers very nice views. The food it good– depending on what you get. The service — same. A little pricey but not a bad place to try. I have been a couple of times with mixed experiences. With that said, I will likely go again — so take that however you will.

Pretty disappointing. With 50% off it was about as much as I would expect to pay at one of the seriously nice places in this area, and it was significantly below the quality. Service was embarrassingly bad, my husband had to send his steak back as medium-​rare translated to well-​done. We waited 20 minutes for our bill & then went to the bar to ask for it. I almost just wanted to walk out, & I’m sure no one would have noticed.

Had dinner here since we were hungry from the Eurostar trip from Paris. Well I’m so annoyed that we went there as the food was very basic and below average and we were pretty much ignored. There was a large table in there that seemed to be getting the royal treatment from all the staff but they did not take care of us at all. What a shame!

Arrived at around 7 15 for a table of two. Initial impressions were that it seems like a cool place to eat. Nice views of the Thames. That’s if you think the Thames is nice to look at lol. There is a heliport right nr by so expect helicopters to land every 20 mins or so which for me was pretty cool. Friendly staff dressed in jackets wearing White gloves. After looking at other reviews I am thinking this is going to be good. Down to business the food the main reason anyone should try a new restaurant.
To start we had a crab app tartare style and lobster ravioli in a bisque sauce. The crab had good flavour and seasoning. There was mango and coriander in the dish which went well together and it was upon a slice of beef tomato which was under ripe. There was plenty of crab but the problem was the thin slate it was placed on. Every time I touched it pieces fell off all over the table. Embarrassing for me. There were a few cold shrimp on the side which were very chewy. Overcooking being the culprit. The lob rav had promise as the bisque was tasty with an extra touch of fennel or star anise which I loved. Unfortunately the ravioli were obviously made by a cook or even the KP (dishwasher) because they were so thick that I considered raking them home letting them dry. Just so I could use them for skeet shooting on my friends farm. Lobster ravioli should be delicate and light if made with skill. Myself being a qualified Sommelier and the other being a classically trained chef from a prominent school both agreed on that!
Mid course being the pig I am. Lobster tails. Very disappointingly chewy and considering that it wasnt over cooked can only be a freshness/​quality issue. I imagine because they offer 50% discount if you order 2 apps and 2 mains that the products are not stringently sourced even though there is a £4 surcharge for these items.3^rd course was a seared duck with a blueberry sauce and a gin jelly. Filet Mignon a balsamic reduction with green beans broccoli and roast pots (I asked for the fondant potatoes on the menu in my mind a better choice with the steak. This is where it went from ok ish to bad. The duck even though we asked for it pink had a massive wall of fat where they basically did not render any of it at all to make the skin a little crisp and it had a horrible grey hue to it. It did not taste good at all. The sauce was just blueberry and sugar. So sweet. So cloying. Would have made a nice coulis on ice cream. The gin jelly impregnated with star anise. Tasted of oh yeh star anise. Hello where is the juniper one would expect. It looked cool like a face hugger from aliens sucking on some brain matter. The fillet was poorly cooked and again not fresh. The balsamic glaze was overly tarty and left a bitter taste in my mouth. Kinda reminded me of an ex girlfriend actually. The greens were not al dente more like you needed dentures to bite into them. Raspberry crème brûlée for dessert with a lemon ice-​cream. The best thing about the meal. The brûlée was a little underset but tasty. I def prefer a little under than too hard and eggy. The whole raspberries in the dish instead of a nice purée swirled within plays havoc with consistency. Lemon ice-​cream was delicious. Wines were decent and like I say friendly staff but look Rafayel Hotel enough faffaw with your jackets and White gloves and über sleek modern deco which bordered on insanity. Get the basics down with the food. Won’t be coming back even for the discount. Oh well. NEXT!!!

I recently attended Afternoon Tea at Hotel Rafayel which I purchased though Groupon. What a disappointment, the service and food were far from a great deal, I felt completely ripped off. The staff were inattentive, the sandwiches were stale and the the whole afternoon was utterly disappointing. At £59.50 for the experience I really feel let down. Two other couples were complaining as we walked out (just an hour after we got there, having waited 50 minutes to be served any tea). I am sure that their lack of care was due to the fact that we had paid in advance — they simply didn’t care if we were enjoying ourselves or not.
I cannot fathom how another reviewer has put this in their top of 4 Afternoon Teas. I have been to a few in London hotels in the past few years, all of which have been delightful. There is no atmosphere here whatsoever. It’s like sitting in a canteen.

Like the review below, I took a friend here for afternoon tea after discovering the Groupon deal, and I have to say that this was without a doubt the worst afternoon tea I have ever had. In fact, it was quite embarrassing that this was what I had purchased for my friend for her birthday! Given that we’ve both sampled various afternoon teas in London I feel I can give an informed opinion on this one: the sandwiches were bordering on revolting and God only knows what much it was that was inside them; there was no tea menu and when our Earl Grey did arrive it was so weak it was straw coloured; and what kind of 5* hotel gives you a spring role and samosa with afternoon tea?! It was like somethin out of a bad Iceland advert… In addition to all of that the cakes were horrible — either too dry or melting on to the plate, the service was inattentive and poor and the atmosphere was severely lacking.
Looking around, other afternoon tea guests were leaving much of their food (rather than asking for more which is all part of a traditional afternoon tea service). For a great afternoon tea which really is worth the extra money go to Brown’s Hotel or one of the other classic London hotels.

went there for tea today with my daughter and though the champagne was nice the rest was absolutely dire! we were served a plate of sandwiches each which were going hard on the outside with i don’t really know the fillings tho there were some chunks of cucumber in the middle of one of them, 1 spring roll and a samosa followed by a scone each with one miniscule pot of jam to share between 2, a teaspoon size piece of cheesecake with a wet base and some inedible macaroons and tastless fairycakes. Staff were not attentive and no atmosphere so please don’t waste your money.
We went to ‘Valerie pattisserie’ for some decent cake and coffee after!

REVIEW OF AFTERNOON TEA
The Hotel Rafayel is certainly off the beaten track, but once you step into the hotel you forget all about the storage unit across the road. The vibe is very decadent (perhaps verging on nightclubby, with loud music in the loos…), and the views of the river in the restaurant were lovely.
We went here for afternoon tea with a Groupon, and I was majorly impressed. The last 12 months have somehow turned into the ‘year of afternoon teas’ for me, and I’d most definitely rate this in my top 4.
We were quickly presented with a glass of champagne, then served a generous selection of delicious sandwiches and samosas along with free tap water. But it was the cakes and pastries which won me over. They’d obviously been handmade, and were plentiful and tasty, my favourite being the chocolate orange macaroon. YES PLEASE! The cupcake frosting was so fresh and yummy, and the rooibos tea was so perfectly brewed that, for once, I didn’t need to add milk.
A champagne afternoon tea here usually costs about £30, and although we paid less than half that with Groupon, I’d very much rcommend paying full whack as you get a lot for your money. And the river views are great.

I had dinner on a Saturday night here with a group of friends on a special offer. Overall plenty of choice on the menu to suit all tastes; the crab starter was a good size, and the scallop starter was cooked to perfection. Main courses were also very good, with every morsel of food on the plate being eaten.
Service was a bit slow throughout the evening, although I blame it being a Saturday and they were fully booked. Nice that they serve table water unannounced too, although would’ve been better if they had filled everyone’s glass rather than leaving some empty. Had to be prompted to do so, as well as to refill water throughout the evening (we would’ve been happy to do it ourselves had they left the water bottle near us).
Parking around the area is a bit tricky, but worth eating here if you are looking for a nice place to entertain guests, and particularly if you are able to book on a special offer like we did.