Every year in February we are in Hout Bay and Indian Oven was our favorite restaurant. Coming from an Indian background we were delighted to have an Indian restaurant offering authentic Indian food. But this year was a disaster. We had samosas with a hardly seasoned filling which were still ok to eat with the tamarind sauce. The tandoori gobi (cauliflower) was quite raw and hard to chew, the tandoori marinade was not balanced. The hugest disappointment were the curries, chicken dopiaza and chicken kadai. Both curries are normally with tomato in a red gravy. This time they were both yellow and like a stew, with no tomato, very sweet and tasted very much like cream as if their base was both rather a korma curry. Not nice. As we don’t like to waste food we took both curries home and were reheating them the other day adding masala spices, tomato, garlic, ginger and chili.
But what happened to Indian Oven? The new chef obviously doesn’t know much about Indian cuisine.
Oh, and the service… very friendly but understaffed and overstrained. We waited long to give our order and the meals to be served. The poppadums that normally come as a welcome snack arrived after the starters. When our glasses were empty we were not asked if we would like to drink anything else.
Unfortunately not a good experience and we have to look for another Indian restaurant in Cape Town.

Ordered the lamb & bean bunny together with the lamb biriyani. Besides waiting for approximately over 40 minutes for the food, the food presented was highly disappointing. Nowhere near authentic Indian food. When this was queried I was told that there was nothing that can be done and that I was not in Durban. Very arrogant, unpleasant staff and service.

This spot has good ambience. We visited this venue due to the good reviews, which I suppose is from patrons who have not yet had great curries/ northern Indian cuisine. We had the potato-coriander lamb mince as a starter...to test the waters...dissapointing! Hubby had the lamb roganjosh as a main which arrived as a pale yellow stew with no semblance of the depth of flavour and taste that a roganjosh is expected to have. I had the Butter Paneer, which was so sickly sweet and not flavourful either. The garlic Naan came as two dry crumbly pieces of cracker biscuits which appeared to be leftover pizza dough, reheated and disguised as naan bread. If you know what Northern Indian cuisine tastes like- or any other mediocre curry for that matter- this place be a great disappointment 😞 we will not be back or recommend anyone.
The service staff are attentive.

Excellent traditional subcontinent food, full of flavour!! Take their advice on the level of spice and heat - the kitchen does not mix their chilli metaphors. Top class!

After a year in Germany it was great coming back to some solid, hearty curry at The Indian Oven. So good to se rhat some things do not change, but stay the same and improve. Service was courteous, friendly and very efficient.