The new owners of a Isleworth hotel have revealed plans for a refurbishment and introduced a new menu at its attached Indian restaurant.
Osterley Park Hotel, in Great West Road, six miles from Heathrow , was taken over by the Joshi family at the beginning of April.
The hotel includes the Indian restaurant and bar, called Terminal 6, which anyone is welcome to visit even if they are not a guest at the hotel.
Seema Joshi, who is the operations director and whose father-in-law, Rajinder Joshi, bought the hotel, explained work has already started on changing the look of the restaurant and bar.
Eating out in and around London
The restaurant and bar remain open while work is carried out in stages.
It won’t be changing the name of Terminal 6 but is instead styling it on the aviation theme.
The new restaurant and bar décor includes features such as clocks showing different destinations and time zones, and airport codes.
A cocktail menu has drinks named after destinations.
Explaining the new menu, Seema said: “We have tried to go for obviously the choices that people want when they go to an Indian restaurant but also have unique dishes that we don’t think anyone in the immediate vicinity would have.”
These more unusual dishes include Palk Chaat, which is a spinach-based starter.
“Everyone who has had it is addicted to it because it is so moreish,” explained Seema.
Another starter is Gunpowder Paneer, an Indian cheese dish.
“It’s got lots of different spices and it packs a bit of a punch,” said Seema. “It’s not very spicy, it’s not hot but it’s very delicious.”
There are dishes which combine the flavours of Indian and Chinese cuisine such as noodles with an Indian slant, and one of the mains is Chicken Shashlik, which is chicken with green pepper, red pepper and an Indo-Chinese sauce.
If you’re looking for evening entertainment, the bar has a DJ on Fridays and Saturdays until 2pm.
The new owners have plans to start refurbishing the Tudor-style hotel towards the end of the year. The refurbishment will include a face lift for the accommodation block out the back.
Seema said: “It will be a modern, minimalist look. We are still keeping it as a three-star hotel. We have a lot of regular customers who use it so we don’t want to alienate anyone by putting prices up.
"We just want to make it more comfortable and improve the look of the hotel.”
The hotel also has a function room for 400 guests which can be booked.
The family want the hotel, restaurant and bar to be seen as a family-friendly destination with events targeted at families, such as a Father’s Day event.
They have been talking with local sports teams about using the venue and also plan to invite mother and toddler groups into the hotel for coffee.
An official launch event is being planned for June.
Seema said: “We want to bring it back to more of a community type of place – somewhere where people in the neighbourhood would want to go.
“We are very excited and the whole family is pitching in as well. It has been a real project for us all.”
