Vegan-friendly
Lacto
Indian
Fast food
Delivery
Take-out
Part of international chain of South Indian vegetarian cuisine restaurants. Serves dosas, idlis, and more. Uses dairy, so let the staff know if you are vegan and do not want yogurt, ghee, or cream, etc. Open Mon-Sat 12:00-22:30, Sun 12:00-22:00.
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17 Charing Cross Rd (at Leicester Sq), London, England, WC2H 0EP
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- Wheelchair accessible
- Accepts credit cards
- Free Wi-Fi
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Last update on 15 Oct 2024 by EddyMaya
Update business info -
Added by SaravanaBhavanLondon on 16 Jan 2018
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18 Reviews
First Review by yumchadong
EddyMaya
Points +868
Nice South Indian food - Edit
This restaurant is part of the internationally renowned Saravana Bhavan group. Like their other outlets around the world, it offers a wide range of South Indian dishes. I had the Mysore dosa, which was excellent and very similar to what you get in the eponymous city. My wife had the chana batura (which is vegetarian but not vegan) and she enjoyed it too. It came with possibly the biggest batura I have ever seen! Their paper dosa are also off the scale! Prices are reasonable for this part of London and service is quick. Ideal for a tasty pre-theatre treat!
Read morePros: Authentic South Indian cuisine, Fast service , Good prices
Cons: Best to avoid North Indian food here
Guest
itsmeagain
Points +490
Spicy food - Edit
The team look extremely busy. The spicy soya curry was outstanding. Space is at a premium, tables within touching distance. Being stared at in a rude manner by people clamouring to get in ( we were sat by a window.] I had to hide my face as the woman outside watched every mouthful go in.
Read moreNo water is offered. Very bad service that, a ploy to get you to buy bottles of water. The dishes are spicy, provide free water . A large service charge is not mentioned. Ten per cent for..what ..?...
Food is insanely delicious and also really spicy we felt. Just 100 per cent crazy good. Service and rude customers seem a problem. As we were sat waiting for the meals, a guy next to us got up and left his 2.95 bottle of water untouched on the table. We left it obviously as it's not ours.
As we were about to leave, a family with teenage boys sat there and one of the boys immediately took the bottle and began drinking. Not great and yet , in line with other behaviour on display.
Pros: Food, Spices
Cons: Rude customers, Hidden charges, No water on tables.
Guest
Lauraleec
Points +12918
Delicious - Edit
Great South Indian food. Couldn't help but pop in for a dosa. Once ordered the food didn't take that long to arrive but it took ages to get staff's attention to place the order so this is why I didn't rate five stars.
Read moreGuest
vegansheep
Points +2790
Terrible choice for vegans - Edit
This restaurant might be vegetarian but if you don’t want a dosa there’s very little (that’s vegan) to eat!!
Read moreOnly the three soya curries are marked as vegan (somehow the chana masala and aloo gobi contain dairy). Even the plain rice is marked not vegan, however the waiter said it ‘should be’…
I took his word for it and ordered that with the soya makhani. My word it was spicy! The flavour was nice but it was unpleasantly hot, so unless you want a dosa I really don’t recommend this place.
Cons: Few vegan options , Too spicy , No vegan dessert
Guest
Ashafidhafathima
Points +16
Bad experience - Edit
Being to many outlets across the globe several times, but the branch in Leicester Square is very poor. The way how staff is behave to the customer was very very bad. And when told them the excuse was made by saying I am a student. I agree that student do part time in resturants but being a student is never made as a excuse in any industry. I think proper training should be given to staff how to behave and do the serving on the plate. From the front house staff to waiter/ waitress was verybad. A cold dosa was served. Asked for a chutney and didn't give a chutney. Me and my family was in a plan to eat out more options but due to the approach from the beginning, we decided to leave. And please teach your staffs to kindly listen to customer's opinion and behave politely and not a lame excuses. Never had an experience at any resturant in the UK. And not going to recommend this branch at all
Read moreGuest
lettix
Points +1590
Amazing dosa - Edit
I love the dosa they serve there. Its authentic indian and I always go to Saravana Bhavan in any city I visit (if there is one) - i was never disappointed.
Read moreGuest
simver
Points +367
Delicious vegan options - Edit
Big menu with many vegan options, clearly indicated. I recommend the onion masala dosa and cowliflower wings. We had to wait a few minutes before getting a table.
Read morePros: Many vegan options , Great flavours
Cons: Quite busy. People were waiting outside
Guest
IevaAnciukevičiūtė
Points +478
Fabulous Experience! - Edit
First of, you can tell a great restaurant by the queues outside of it 😂. They don’t take bookings AFAIK so we just turned up and we’re told it’ll be about 10min wait which it was.
Read moreOnce inside I could immediately tell that the place will be amazing, it was buzzing and everyone looked super excited about their food.
I know this is a chain restaurant but to me the food was absolutely spot on! As a loved of donuts I of course went for the deep fried lentil donuts for a starter and we had a curry to share which we asked to veganise. Dosa was also super yummy!
Overall I thought it was superb. And really affords given the location!
Guest
Jenster
Points +1039
Beautiful food - Edit
I came here with two friends to experience vegan Jain food. We arrived just after opening for lunch and the restaurant filled up quickly. The food was superb, very reasonably priced and the service was excellent. Particularly liked the sambala and sauces.
Read moreGuest
JaytotheJizzle
Points +73
Couldn't seat me, too busy, told me to wait outside for half hour - Edit
On the one hand it's a good sign that the restaurant was packed at 8pm. But even though there were seats outside, they'd designated them as the waiting area and weren't serving people outside.
Read morePros: Indians eating in this Indian.
Cons: Waiting time.
Guest
Ren-ska
Points +432
South Indian food is the best - Edit
You know the food must be good if the place is packed with Indian people. I'm from the Netherlands and our Indian restaurants don't resemble the real deal a whole lot (so much meat while in India most is vegetarian). Anyway very happy to be able to have a masala dosa again😄
Read morePros: South Indian food!, need I say more?, ... dosa!
Guest
123emily
Points +1560
Atrocious service, food bland, overpriced - Edit
I was really excited to eat here after seeing this all-vegetarian place with plenty of clearly labelled vegan options but sadly left feeling disappointed, hungry and out-of-pocket. I’m not one for writing bad reviews but vegans might want to avoid…
Read moreFood: ordered the mini uthappams in a variety of flavours/toppings. The food was really nicely presented. However, that was about the only positive. The food itself was quite bland even with the various toppings. They all tasted more or less the same. You definitely needed the dips, but the dips were nothing amazing. The portion was too small for the price paid also. Overall: disappointing.
Service: the worst part of our experience. We were told the waiting time for a table was 10 minutes but waited outside in the cold with a baby for more like 25 minutes. Once inside and seated, they took AN HOUR to take our drink orders let alone food. With a 1 year old, sitting waiting for so long was not ideal.
Once the food arrived, we were missing part of the order and what we had didn’t match the description on the menu. We were served uthappams topped with something that looked like Nutella. We double-checked if it was all vegan. The waitress was incredibly rude and did not swap our incorrect meals with a ‘too bad’ attitude. I will add we were nothing but very polite and friendly at all times to the staff. She told us we should have specified we wanted it vegan, despite the item being labelled vegan on the menu. This is seriously bad, particularly considering the bad intolerances of members of our group. Nowhere on the menu said we should specify vegan. The waitress did not apologise and instead then said that what we were served was vegan (we have some reason to doubt that with the initial reaction when we said we were vegan and mismatch to menu). Instead of being apologetic, she said, “next time you need to tell us FIRST” in a very condescending tone. I was a bit taken aback by the rudeness and it really ruined any enjoyment the already-bland food. There was a general unfriendly, cold and miserable vibe from the entire team of staff and we felt very unwelcome.
Restaurant: Very cramped, no social distancing, you couldn’t fully pull out your chair due to the closeness of other tables. Not very accessible if you have a wheelchair or pushchair. No disabled toilet or baby changing
We will certainly not be returning. I hope this restaurant greatly improves on its customer service, food, prices and vegan considerations
Pros: Interesting options and presentation
Cons: Atrocious service, long waiting times, rude staff, Overpriced bland food, not filling, Too cramped
itsmeagain
Sounds a very poor experience. We went recently. Overcrowded, my Mysore dosa was not brought, I received normal madala dosa. No Mysore red sauce. Too close to adjoining tables. No water offered , so you end up needing the bottled water they sell. Tasty food. Expensive.
Read moreGuest
yumchadong
Points +5539
Consistently good, authentic Indian - Edit
I love this restaurant chain. They have many venues globally and is favoured by / caters mostly to Indian expat community which is why the food is so good and authenitic. They make seriously good dosas. My go to is usually a masala dosa. I have ordered it in Saravana Bhavan in London, Hong Kong, New York, Bangkok, Doha etc and it has always been consistently excellent.
Read moreUpdated from previous review on 2018-06-17
Guest
MayyanBA
Points +21
Amazing - Edit
First time eating proper Indian food and it exceeded my expectations. Even my mom, who had been to India for over six months thought it was incredible. I highly recommend eating here
Read moreGuest
edandorin
Points +17
One of the best Indian food we had - Edit
We've been in India and had a lot of india food and this is one of the best restaurants we've tried
Read moreThis is the first time i tried a fresh, hot gulab jamun!!
Guest
MayaVeis
Points +28
Very nice food - Edit
Very Vegen friendly with each dish if you ask them. Nice staff.
Read moreGuest
kristinivarsson
Points +93
Great South Indian food - Edit
You should go here if you crave for South Indian food. We ordered vadas, parothas and korma and it was great. The North Indian food we had, channa masala and palak paneer, was however, not good at all.
Read moreGuest
Alexch
Points +64
Great food, terrible service - Edit
We ordered two mains, two sides and two drinks. Both sides and one drink were forgotten (so half of our entire order). They brought us a side we didn't order and tried to charge us for it. I had to ask 4 times to get a glass of water. By the time our actual sides came the mains were almost cold. It was also quite a cramped environment to eat in.
Read moreThis is all a shame because the food was really good mixed heritage Asian, with plenty of choice on the menu and marked up vegan dishes.
Pros: Really good food, Clearly marked vegan options
Cons: Very poor service , Cramped restaurant
Guest
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