A renowned hospitality group founded by Rick Stein, known for its seafood restaurants, particularly in Cornwall, UK. Now undergoing a generational transition.
Rick Stein is a renowned English celebrity chef, restaurateur, author, and television presenter, celebrated for his passion for fresh seafood and coastal cuisine. He is known for popularizing British seafood dishes...
The Seafood Restaurant is Rick Stein's flagship establishment, opened in 1975 in Padstow, Cornwall. It is renowned for its focus on fresh, local seafood, prepared according to Rick Stein's famous recipes. The restaurant also features an adjoining seafood cookery school.
Customers consistently rate The Seafood Restaurant as a top destination for seafood in Cornwall. While often described as expensive, the consensus is that the quality of the food and experience makes it well worth the price.
Additional Details
Established in 1975, The Seafood Restaurant has been a cornerstone of Padstow's culinary scene for decades. It also houses a seafood cookery school, offering guests the chance to learn about preparing fresh fish.
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5
We booked to eat at this lovely restaurant and couldn’t have been happier. We all partook in the £75 special 4-course menu (which was really 6 courses when you consider the bread and deep fried shrimps that are automatically added, plus the petit fours, and we all loved what we chose. The courses were just the perfect size and we were filled up totally by the end, but never felt outfaced.
The service was relaxed and friendly and they looked after us very well.
The restaurant is lovely. Parking was just across the way in the harbour car park (though suspect that gets very busy in high season). The decoration inside the venue was bright and comfortable and we immediately liked the atmosphere. Padstow itself is beautiful with the most gorgeous harbour and cute shops. I’d definitely go back to both the restaurant and Padstow as they were both the highlight of our four night visit to Cornwall.
We have been dining here for decades & we often visit for celebratory meals, when staying in Cornwall.
Nowadays, it won't be Rick Stein cooking your food, but one of the Stein family's team.
The food is always great quality & cooked to perfection.
Currently, there are 3 food menus to choose from. The pricy A La Carte menu; a set 3 course lunch menu for £40 & a "greatest hits" set menu for £75, showcasing 4 courses from its 50 years of trading. It opened in 1975.
Drinks are obviously extra & a service charge of 12.5% is always added to the bill.
We opted for the (great value,) 3 course lunch menu.
If you wanted to order from the £75 (4 course) menu, everyone at your table must also have that option.
For those of you who watched Rick's older cookery series on BBC2, look out for the bronze statue of Rick's beloved, late dog, Chalky, by the entrance door. Chalky was a great little character & a great travel companion for Rick.
You will need to park in one of the 3 council car parks as no street parking is available nearby.
The reviews on here either seem to be 5* marvels or hate bombing 1* so I thought I would add a reasonable levelled review.
We came here in April 26 based on the Rick Stein name but also recommendations from people who have been.
I thought the service was good throughout. We were celebrating our anniversary and it was well recognised by front of house and later with our dessert.
Food
Starters - we had scallops with pea puree and bacon. We had 2 each. They were very nice.
Mains - we had the Indonesian seafood curry and a lobster risotto. Thoroughly enjoyed both. We ordered no sides.
Dessert - the caramelised white chocolate tart and the molten chocolate cake. Very enjoyable. We also were given some fudge as an anniversary acknowledgement.
Drinks - one glass of non alcoholic champagne, a carafe of wine and a glass of port. Tap water.
Price - we firstly got a bill which was over £300. We inspected the bill and saw we were being charged £120 for 4 scallops!!! We raised this with the waiter and there was a mistake and it was reissued and we spent £214 including tip.
The meal is nice but I think it’s expensive for what it is. We didn't have a boozy dinner, nor did we go crazy with our ordering. I had the curry but what I wanted was the whole Dover sole but that’s £64 without any sides. With sides it would have been an £80 main course. Scallops are £7.50 for each scallop. A carafe of wine cost £32. If my partner was drinking, the bill would have been £250+.
I enjoyed the meal and experience but I didn’t feel I got a £200+ experience and have been to better restaurants and spent similar, and if I’m honest been to restaurants with less prestige, spent less and enjoyed it more.
This isn’t a slant on the restaurant, and we did have a nice time but if you’re going to book, I think you have to accept you’re going for the name.
By the way, you don’t get amazing sea views. If you’re lucky to be seated in the conservatory (we wasn’t) your views are of the carpark. I’ve noticed a few reviews were surprised it’s not got a better outlook.
What an amazing dining experience. The manager, chef and waiting staff were all so lovely and very helpful when I was choosing my courses as I have Coeliac disease. I can't recommend this restaurant highly enough. Everything was delicious and perfectly cooked. Thank you so much.
The restaurant itself is beautiful and we received a warm welcome on arrival.
The food service wasnt incredible, ive been for a tasting menu at a high end chefs restaurant and the experience wasnt as good as that sadly.
The waiters were all friendly and polite but food wasnt explained very well on the menu or specials, no drink pairing was recommended with any of the dishes either.
we all had starters and a fruits de mer in the middle of the table which came with dips and sides, it would've been lovely for the waiter on our table to offer us help with how to enjoy this platter and which dips went with which seafood, it would create more of a dining experience as it was some of the tables first time having this dish.
For starter i had the sardines which came with a delicious garlic and coarsely chopped green herbs topping which was very tasty. For main i had the steak which was cooked to perfection, cooked medium rare and it just melted in my mouth.
The only downside was if this restaurant wants to compete with the top restaurants there needs to be more care when presenting food to the table and the service provided during the meal, our waiter was pleasant enough and interacted with us in general about our evening just not enough about the food presented to us or how to get the most out of our meal.
Maybe a taster menu level of service is more what i was expecting than general dining but having heard great things about the restaurant previously maybe we just built it up in our heads too much.
I had some lovely mocktails throughout the meal, i cannot consume alcohol due to medicine i take, recommended by Daniel M our waiter which i let him suprise me with and they were excellent, easily the best part of service of the meal were these drinks.
For desert i had 3 scoops of ice cream, 2 pistachio and one chocolate, the toasted pistachio biscuit that came with it was a nice touch. The ice cream sadly didnt have much flavour.
It was still an enjoyable evening and we had a giggle with Daniel during our meal and he was very friendly and he wasn't the only one serving at our table of presenting our food, And on leaving the restaurant the team were excellent allowing us to take some menus home as gifts.
It was just the attention to detail with the menu and service of the food that was slightly lacking for an renowned high end establishment.
