Athena, The Leela Palace

Athena is a lounge bar in the basement of The Leela Palace on Airport Road.

I have no words to describe this awful place. I have been here before but Saturday night was horrible.

The entry is Rs.1000 for a couple. Out of this, Rs.200 is cover charge and Rs.800 you can spend inside. We wanted to pay by our American Express Card, which they surprisingly did not accept. We paid the money and asked the guy on the front desk that how the crowd is as we could not hear any noise from inside. He said, 'It's Good'. We went inside and Whoa! The place was almost empty, with hardly 6 people inside. They were playing some lounge music and we decided to find a place for ourselves. We sat on a couch and a waiter came running towards us saying that the place was reserved. We went to the next couch and again the guy told us it was reserved. We asked him to take us to a place which was not reserved and he said all the places are reserved and showed us to two small stools in a dark corner. That really pissed me off. I told him that if there's no place inside, why did they not tell us so at the entry itself.

They had a separate area for members (which was obviously empty). We asked them about how to get the membership and they had no clue!

We wanted to leave, but not without spending the 800 bucks. We went to the bar, I had a large vodka with cranberry juice and my husband had a 100 pipers with coke (they did not have thums up). The drinks cost 1000 in all, and we had to pay another 200. Again surprisingly, they took Amex inside!! Part of the same hotel, takes Amex at one place and does not take it at another. We paid the money, gulped our drinks and left.

That was Rs. 1200 spent in 10 minutes. Athena sucks!

Hence, the ratings (out of 5) follow
Ambience - 1
Service - 0.5
Presentation - no clue
Taste - no clue
Drinks - 2.5

Value for money - 0.5 (this 0.5 is because you can tell your friends you went to The Leela (Grr!))

Parking Tip - Valet Parking

Location - Old Airport Road