Sapna Caterers have been providing delicious food and incredible service for weddings since 1991. Their new adventure is The Orangery. It is set in 240 acres at the Stockley Park golf club. Ensuring the views from the restaurant are second to none. More about that later on. The menu is primarily billed as modern Indian, but it takes more inspiration from the Lahori cuisine than anything. So, broadly speaking Indian, but specifically Lahori. We visited during the Eid weekend when they had a special set menu. This allowed us to sample a lot of their dishes, most I assume will be on their usual menu, but some may not be. Being a set menu, the food was divided into starters, mains and dessert. Read on to find out about our experience.
The Starters
The starters were: papri chaat, chapli kebab, mix tikka, Lahori fish fried, lamb mini slider and samosa chaat. The presentation here was beautiful as you can see from the pictures. The taste was a bit mixed. Some were amazing and some were just average. Nothing was bad. The two chaats were the stand out dishes here. The rest were average to good and kind of gave off wedding food vibes.
The Mains
The mains came in buffet form. So, you had to go up and pick and choose what you want (as many times as you wanted). The options were: lamb rara, haleem, Sindhi chicken karahi, palak paneer, achaari aloo, Kabli pilao, chicken biryani, zeera rice and naan. The dishes here were also average in taste with the Sindhi chicken karahi being outstanding. This was really impressive to be honest.
The dessert
Desserts came out in a pretty cute afternoon tea kind of presentation. They were: gajjar halwa, homemade kulfi, kheer, mini gulab jamun and other assorted desserts. By this time we were already really full. The desserts were all cute and bitesize to be honest, so easily consumable. They all tasted good. The presentation was impressive as you can see.
Unlimited karak tea and cold drinks were also available. And all of this came to £35 per person.
The view
The view is something they and reviewers go on about and seem to be one of their selling points. It is of a golf course. It is definitely wonderful to overlook and makes for a perfect backdrop for some selfies. Lovely setting for families and couples.
The service
The service, unfortunately, was below par. Considering they are selling themselves as a modern (I’ve even heard fine dining) restaurant and experience, the staff were really poor. There was a level of incompetence and uncertainty with all members of staff. They all seemed to be baffled and overwhelmed by any simple questions asked and they just couldn’t answer sufficiently or efficiently. And if they were busy (as they told us when booking), then we could give them that excuse, but in reality, they weren’t even that busy. So, they should be able to deal with the amount of customers they had. We were also initially told by someone that we had to choose between a set menu and a buffet, but then someone else informed us that it is only a set menu, which includes a buffet for mains.
Getting there
Nearest station: West Drayton / Uxbridge
Nearest mosque: Hayes Muslim Centre
Parking: on site car park.
