We asked our Instagram community what they found were their worst experiences in restaurants in Lahore.
Now we’re all used to publications telling us where to eat. And while that is pretty important work, we’ve noticed that while making decisions, the process of elimination works best. So we decided to give you some truly important advice about where you should not go to eat! We asked within our communities about which places to avoid, and here are the final results! 1. Monal
While the Monal in Islamabad is an institution, the branch in Lahore has failed to live up to expectations. The location of the branch gives you an overview of Gulberg’s busiest area, making for a pretty good view. However, according to our PG community, the food does not live up to expectations at all. Most people who complained about the food said the quality was way too low, especially for a restaurant that has such a great branch elsewhere. Goes to show to you how important a chef can be. 2. La Atrium
According to our research, La Atrium is a prime example of how looks can be deceiving. While looking at the setup of the restaurant, you’d think you were in for a high-quality meal. However, the food is cheap. And there’s nothing wrong with cheap food. But then sell it at that price. Don’t try to fool your customers with an exterior. One of our community members said that their sauce for the chicken is literally the Knorr chilli ketchup sauce. Why pay so much when you can just make it yourself? 3. Eataly Ristorante
Now this one was the one of the most mentioned by our community, but for some reason they all kept calling it the Little Eataly. (I think they changed the name or something) This restaurant suffers from the same problems that La Atrium has, the quality of the food is just not up to price. This is clearly showing to be an important factor in why people would refuse to go to a restaurant again-why waste your money? 4. Arif Chatkhara at Packages Mall
Another great restaurant chain with a bad branch. People within our community had terrible experiences with this specific branch. While many were happy at the idea of such amazing food becoming more accessible, they were disappointed in how far the quality of the food at fallen. In all fairness, we have no idea how you’d eat this food in the mall. A full-on restaurant like Dogar in phase 4 would have been better off. 5. Uncle Tetsu (Japanese Cheesecakes & Cafe)
This restaurant got a lot of coverage when it decided to open a branch in Lahore, and gained a semi-cult following. However, many felt that the food was nothing particularly special. Most of our community members said they just had better places to take them too that would give higher quality cheesecakes. 6. Jade Cafe
Now this one was the biggest disappointment. When it first opened, no one could shut up about the amazing food. However, eventually all the hype was just concentrated on their breakfast meals. Unfortunately the quality for that just went down, but the prices went up. While Jade is still pretty popular, it’s more for it’s prime location than anything else. 7. Freddy’s Cafe
Now I know what you were all thinking- this is still open? Well it is, with literally inedible food, at least according to our community. One of our community member said that she went to go relive her childhood, but was thoroughly disappointed in how bad the food was. Another community member talked about how his chicken was under-cooked, which is actually pretty dangerous. We’re pretty glad to hear this institution is still around, but maybe put us all out of our misery? 8. Espresso
Now this restaurant had one issue that most of our community members could agree on-bland. They called the white sauce unoriginal and the whole menu as way too expensive for the quality of the food. And they said that most of their coffees can be had from literally any other place. So what’s the point? 9. Simply Sufi
Another Packages Mall branch! However, we were pretty surprised by this. Fast food is the perfect type of food to eat at malls. However, Simply Sufi was simply not up to mark. Many called it “cheap” fast food, but isn’t fast food suppose to be cheap? 10. Tree Lounge
A trend that we began to notice was that many of the restaurant looked great. They had the right chairs, the pretty paintings-but they failed to bring in the flavour. Tree Lounge is another example. One of our community members said the food was “under-cooked” and “greasy”, while another said that the meat smelt terribly. Now that doesn’t really sound appetizing, does it? 11. X2
Now this one is one of the places where the atmosphere did effect the experience. Many of our community members talked about how annoying the lighting was, with the tube lights giving everyone a headache. Now what’s the point of eating out if you’re going to get a headache? Another one of our community members said the food was not even close to the hype the restaurant gets. 12. Novu
Novu is another example of how important the chef is. While many did not have complaints about the actual menu itself, they had issues with how incompetent the chef was. Multiple community members talked about how inconsistent the food was. Some days the dishes would be great, and some days the same dishes would be terrible. One member even talked about how she had to send the food back THREE TIMES before just giving up on the place. 13. Manhattan Bites
Now our final restaurant is another example of how restaurants struggle to grow, and as such, their quality goes down. Manhattan Bites used to be pretty good back in the the day. The go-to place for New York style pizza. However, overtime the pizza became way too doughy, just becoming glorified cheese naan, with a little bit of tomato sauce. One community member even talked about how unwell he got after eating there!