The best restaurants in the neighbourhood of St Leonard's East Midlands

28/11/2021: Second time here in two weeks and the food did not disappoint. Not been for years so when we visited with my brother two weeks ago it was a nice surprise as to how good the food was. We had a range of curries ranging from korma to vindaloo. The additional red sauce served with poppadoms is delicious and the chefs special called Jinga was to die for. We will be returning very soon

12/11/2021: Absolutely amazing evening. Brilliant staff and an amazing level of quality and service. Thank you Ashoka @Talarmade

11/10/2021: This was our second ever visit to this restaurant, the last being around a year ago. I have no idea if the business has changed management but our latest visit was very different to the first.I booked a table through the restaurants website using their booking tool. On arrival I was asked if I was having food … err really? That’s why I booked a table. We were shown to a table which was small, round and had a tiny wooden stool one side and a padded bench seat behind.There was no way I was going to be able to eat a meal sat on a small stool so I swapped it for a wooden school style chair at a near by table. With little room we moved to the next table which offered slightly more room.A server arrived and asked if we wanted drinks. At this point I want to be clear that all 5 staff members we interacted with during our visit were good with Reagan in particular being very good. We needed her help to make sense of the drinks menu which was in impossibly small print. Tiny font in white on a light beige background … seriously?? With assistance given we ordered drinks and were then informed the restaurant was “Pay As You Go” … again … Seriously?? I have never known a restaurant other than fast food outlets to require you to pay for your purchase before you receive the drinks / food.It was at this point we were informed that the table we had moved too was booked and we had to move. We asked for a table with some room as I stated I was not content to sit on a small hard stool to eat a meal. We were moved to a corner table where we could both just sit together on the padded bench. We would note that this table was not cleared when the previous occupant had left before we were moved to it. While roomier the table was close to the mens toilets and came with a strong smell of urinal every time the door opened. This issue seemed to be mostly resulting from the management standing with the door open while they discussed the toilet more than once.Still we stayed put and ordered our food. The server was helpful as I wanted the same as I had previously and showed her a photo which she was able to identify. We AGAIN paid up front for the order and waited for the food to arrive.The time between order and arrival was short and when it arrived we could only give the food 10 out of 10 for presentation and smell. We questioned with the server about a side of onion rings we had ordered and she said she would check on it while she got us salt & vinegar.I think the server went to the sea to get the salt as she never came back with it. The original server who took the food order did return to the table to say she did not know we wanted onion rings. While we appreciated her apology, we had shown her a photo of what we wanted and we did clearly state we wanted them.For a third time I got my card out to pay for the onion rings and we settled down to enjoy the food which was excellent. I do not know if it was because we had paid up front but no one came to ask how our meal was (why would they, you have already paid and if there are any problems it will be a proper trial to get a refund to your card that will probably take 3 working days to show – NOT A SITUATION WHICH WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU PAID AT THE END LIKE ANY OTHER RESTAURANT). We did manage to catch a servers attention to get the food we couldn’t eat in a bag to take home, again, Reagan was great here. Once we had finished we just got up and left (as we had already paid for anything) which felt very impersonal.In summary, the food is excellent but the experience is poor. The “pay as you go” policy wasn’t in place the first time we visited and is a HUGE negative, if you read this Einstein’s, please stop this practise. The restaurant is German themed but the blues music, while not offensive in any way didn’t help the theme. Maybe some proper “Ooomm-Pah” band music would help here? It really is a shame that such great food is totally let down by poor seating and policy.Not sure we would come back as it stands or recommend to others which is sad.

10/10/2021: Booked a table for drinks with Family members following an event at the Winding Wheel. Friendly table service. Fantastic German Beer and good old 80's Music. Had a great evening. Many thanks.