Celestial Court in Sheraton Imperial Hotel, Kuala Lumpur has always been one of my favourite restaurants. It is a contemporary Chinese restaurant located on the 3rd floor of Sheraton Imperial. You enter the restaurant through a mock pavilion into a comfortable restaurant with delicious and delicate Cantonese cuisine.

Unfortunately, my good impressions of Celestial Court were recently marred by a really unpleasant dining experience. Read on below to find out why.

We recently went for a dim sum lunch there on a Sunday afternoon approximately 1.30pm which was past the lunch crowd. The restaurant was only half full when we arrived but the waiters and waitresses were all dashing around busily and no one even stopped to attend to us when we stood at the entrance. Finally, I stopped the harried cashier and she just pointed to a table and told us to sit there.

No one came to attend to us while we were sitting there and we had to call several staff just to get a menu to place our orders. No one flipped our napkin or even offered us a drink while we sat there for at least 10 minutes. One of them finally appeared with the menus, put it haphazardly on the table then left again much to our surprise! This left us having to look for staff, all over again, when we wanted to place our orders. When we finally got a waitress, she was obviously not prepared to take our orders as she did not have any pen or paper with her and ran to get some only after we suggested that she jot them down. Even with jotting them down, she managed to miss out one of our orders which we noticed only after they placed our dim sum order chit on the table.

All throughout our lunch, the staff were dashing about with stressed expressions which made for a very stressful dining experience. Empty plates had to be left for quite long on our small table before they were cleared and no one offered to top up our water glasses or offer us clean plates.

It was a real disappointing experience and something we definitely did not expect from a 5-star dining establishment! It was a real pity their service levels were so bad as the food was delicious and I had some of the best dim sum I have eaten in a while there.

Perhaps it was just my luck that afternoon, nevertheless, I believe service levels should be always kept consistent and optimum to ensure customers keep coming back. Should you wish to try their delicious dim sum, do try:

  • Har gau (prawn dumplings)
  • Buddha Jumped Over The Wall Dumpling in Sharksfin Soup (it had a whole abalone!)
  • Cod & Prawn Fried Dumpling with Wasabi Dressing (very unique)
  • Sesame Seed Balls Filled With Jade Lotus Paste (not too sweet and bursting with lotus paste)
  • Herbal Jelly With Sea Coconut and Lemon (deliciously refreshing after the heavy dim sum meal)

I would recommend Celestial Court Restaurant for its food but definitely not the service levels!