The Seafood Bar Soho

Work in progress

Cold seafood platter

The Seafood Bar is a brand new seafood concept restaurant from a successful seafood chain operator from Holland which has the same name. I have eaten at the original Seafood bar in Amsterdam just before Covid and it was really enjoyable, it was simple seafood done properly, grilled to the perfection level with a bang on seasoning. So my expectation for the London launch was high. My only question was that have they changed the sourcing of seafood? While London looked similar to the one in Amsterdam, ingredients could play a big part in impacting the final product.

Open kitchen

Shellfish bar

I opted for a cold shellfish platter and some oysters as a starter to share, and the Scottish oysters were excellent, super fresh, sweet, and creamy, easily rival any other oysters you would find in London, but the rest was downhill from there... The crab from the platter was not washed properly and still had some mud, and the lobster was chewy as it was overcooked. On to the main of a giant plate of mix grilled fish, looked impressive but again the lobster was overcooked, as was the salmon. The tomato sauce was watery too, nothing like the good standard I had back in Amsterdam sadly.

Scottish oysters

Mixed seafood grill

I think Seafood Bar understands is not easy to break into the London market so the 50% soft launch offer was sensible while they allow the team to get more familiar with the workflow. The service was also really raw, given us only 2 plates for bread despite we were a party of 3, and forgot to bring up an extra plate after I have requested it. I could see some of them were trying and since it was the first week of launching when I visited along with a discount, it was forgivable. Having said that, the food quality does indeed need to improve for seafood bar to make in in London, not easy when good staff is so hard to come by these days.

Food 2/5

What I paid:

£35 dinner per person 

Average cost without drinks and services:
£40

77 Dean St, London W1D 3SH

https://www.theseafoodbar.com/