Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam has been trading from its Haymarket premises for many a year. It’s a place I’ve visited on a number of occasions and had good, bad and indifferent experiences. I popped in to try its latest iteration to see how things were doing.

The welcome was typically warm and the interior was as smart as I can ever remember it being. It sported a number of those massive lampshades that only large dining spaces can carry off. I was impressed.

The menu is fairly standard and I quickly alighted upon the prawn puri to start followed by the lamb saag and a paratha. Lager seemed a good way to go, as did the pickle tray and poppadom option.

The pickle tray was pretty standard, but it passed the time while my starter was prepared. It arrived looking rather bulky.

It proved a heavy eat and was simply too big for a starter. The sweet little prawns were plentiful, which was good, but it was just a massive portion.

The main course, particularly the paratha, looked much better. It proved tasty fare, but the lamb was a touch overcooked and dry. It wasn’t a patch on the same dish I’d recently sampled at Rivage, nor the one I’d had a nearby Ignite, a while back.

So overall, while the Omar Khayyam is very stylish and service attentive and well-judged, the food doesn’t quite match up. It was still solidly good, but the starter was way too heavy and the main course not what it could have been. If you matched the service and setting from here with the food from Ignite, you’d have a seriously impressive restaurant. But life rarely works like that…

Scores
Blythe scores Omar Khayyam
3/5 for food
3/5 for presentation
4/5 for setting
4/5 for service
giving an overall 14/20

I ate: prawn puri; lamb saag, paratha

I drank: lager

I wore: bacon socks

Total bill: £29.20