Cinnamon Club, Reading Room

I visited Cinnamon Club in Westminster for an office Christmas lunch in early December. Although they didn’t offer a festive menu at the time, their Indian-inspired menu had an interesting selection of starters, main dishes and desserts. We had the option to choose individual dishes or opt for a three-course set menu, which turned out to be the better value. As a pleasant surprise, we were served a complimentary small finger starter to begin the meal. For my starter, I chose the fish cake, which was flavorful and well-prepared. My main course was the jackfruit stew. While it was a creative dish and generally enjoyable, I found the coconut flavor a bit overpowering for my taste. Nonetheless, the overall quality of the food was great, and everything was served promptly. The ambiance of Cinnamon Club is a comfortable, speakeasy-style setting that adds a unique charm to the dining experience. The staff were friendly and attentive throughout the meal. Pricing felt reasonable, especially considering the quality of the food and service. I had a good experience overall and would return to explore other items on their menu. If you’re looking for a place that serves Indian cuisine with a sophisticated twist, Cinnamon Club is worth a visit.

Service: We had booked in advance on OpenTable for a table at 7:30, saying that we are ordering the Tasting menu. We arrived early at 7:10, they were very accommodating and sat us at the bar while they set up our table, we got sat down around 7:20. And this is when things started to go downhill. They asked us to confirm that we are having the tasting menu, and then just forgot about us. The canapé arrived around 25 minutes after we were sat down. Each course after that was about the same, it takes them 10+ minutes to take away our plates after we were finished with them. It really just feels like we were forgotten about. When they took away the plates for the starter course, it was already 9:10 PM. We told them that the wait time between the dishes were a bit too long before the main courses, and they were able to serve the next course within two minutes. The servers did not scrape the crumbs from our table even though they did it for every table around. When they “explained” the dishes as they serve it to us, they just repeated the name of the dish and left. Overall: it felt like a night of waiting Food (tasting menu): The food was nice, but a lot of the proteins are overcooked (medium-well to well-done), I think this is because they were all cooked in the tandoor oven, which gave it a wonderful flavour (but they were overcooked). The dessert taste like it was just taken out of the freezer, as it was nearly rock solid in the middle. The naan was burnt, but they promptly changed it for us after notifying them. The tiger prawn and seafood makhani sauce was lovely; the prawn was nicely cooked, and the sauce reminds you of a seafood bisque. The portion size wasn’t too big as well, we didn’t leave full (probably cuz the only carbs from the tasting menu was the small dollop of mash) The à la carte menu items look really tasty tho Overall: the food was tasty, but did not feel like it was worth the 95 per person price tag.