Richmond - Ryan Review

Ryan's picture
How Helpful?: 
Average: 5 (2 votes)
Author: 
Number of Visits: 
This was my first visit
How Busy?: 
A few tables occupied
Date of Last Visit: 
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Time of Day: 
Weekday Dinner
Rating: 
2.13 / 5
Friendliness of Staff: 
3 (Not bad. Did everything I asked of them)
Speed of Service: 
2 (15 - 25 mins - Where's the food? Might have asked a staff member)
Quality of Food: 
1.5 (Very disappointing - cold, flavourless, burnt)
Decoration & Cleanliness: 
2 (An old Nando's, needs some investment)
Comments - Stand out in our monthly competition! What did you eat? Unique aspects? Parking/transport tips?: 

This Nando's is in one of the few nice boroughs of London, Richmond. About half a mile walk away from Richmond Rail station, and a couple minutes walk from an Odeon (and Curzon) Cinema - and just up from the river so you could have a couple nice drinks down on it! The wonderful Kew Gardens are also about 25 minutes walk away.

Car Parks in Richmond centre are poorly signposted and during the day I imagine empty street bays are difficult to find. I ended up in Friars Lane car park which is hidden away in a rather well to do set of Georgian style houses... It's free after 6:30pm - otherwise about £2 per hour for a max four hour stay. This is then only a few minutes walk away from Nando's.

This Nando's has a nice patio area out the front and some full length windows/doors that can open up - which was pleasant on this warm evening. The seating on the patio is rather tight though. Infact all the seating inside and out is table/chair seating - and is all rather tight (50 tables in a small restaurant).

The decor plays more to the faux-original features of the building, so there are wooden timbers for the ceiling, with a few red metal shades for the lights. Away from this there are only a few small canvas paintings in the alcove to the right of the entrance and a couple of skylights to try and make it a bit brighter inside. Overall though, the decor is standard and the seating poor. Also, when somebody uses the frozen yoghurt machine it interferes with the stereo and creates a horrendous sound. A Rockerfella Skank-Thrash Metal-Speed Garage-Portuguese Samba...

The restaurant had just a few tables in use, so was a bit disappointed the food took 22 minutes to come... and it was definitely not worth the wait.

I had a very small half chicken - and must have been a battery chicken that was bullied by its cellmates and ha its food stolen. No exaggeration, but only one forkful of chicken was on the leg piece - and the rest just scab and bones. The breast piece was very lean too but also badly burnt. It wasn't even hidden by the cook turning it over on the plate. It was there in all its glory... and badly burnt... all over the one side! It was the first time I've removed the skin in Nando's for a loooong time! It's odd that somebody actually cooked that and then somebody else served it and both saw it and thought "yep that looks okay". At least the meat was hot... because the chips were cold and tasted crap - like they were stale...

It got a little worse as I cheekily ordered a piece of cheesecake and it was frozen - properly frozen... needed to be cut with a knife frozen. I thought I'd cut it up and leave it to defrost for a bit and then had the bright idea of pouring cream on it too to warm it up a little more... But the cream was even frozen! It came out in crystallised lumps...

A poor meal overall.

Add new comment

(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.
(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.
(If you're a human, don't change the following field)
Your first name.

Plain text

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.