Cardamom in Brighton and Hove

I have been to many Indian restaurants but to me this one stands out in terms of the quality of the food. It tasted wonderful and fresh and full of well balanced spicy flavour.

We were looking for an Indian restaurant to celebrate a friend’s birthday and we found the Cardamom Restaurant. Onion bhaji and samosas to start and we all agreed they were possibly the best any of us had tasted. For mains we had lamb bhuns, chicken tikka masala and chicken dhansak - plus rice and naans. All very tasty. Add in the in quiet attentive service and made for a great meal out. Highly recommended!

We ordered chicken pakora as a starter, it was over cooked on the outside but the chicken inside was still pink. I didn’t realise until I bit into it and it was super rubbery which made me look and it was undercooked inside, all 4 pieces of pakora were the same. We mentioned it to the server who told the kitchen, we could hear the conversation and the chef’s response was ‘I don’t care’. The server didn’t come up to us again, and the kitchen staff were talking about us and looking at us for a while after but in another language so not sure what was being said. Anyway, the manager was very moody towards us after that and made us feel extremely awkward, no apology was offered and the pakora was not mentioned again. It was still on the final bill though, I understand as it has come from their stock but I didn’t really want to pay for something we had not eaten as it was undercooked. We wanted to argue it but felt like we had to leave as soon as possible due to the atmosphere created. The curry itself was actually excellent, very tasty but a bit on the mild side, my partner ordered a vindaloo and it wasn’t spicy at all, although it was full of flavour.

Great food had the chicken Dhansak and the peanut Aubergine curry - both were excellent and the rice exceptional - great experience and friendly service - will definitely return

Really good. Lovely poppadoms. Great chicken tikka masala and pilau rice. Thanks to the owner for tequila. Recommended.