Cape Town Fish Market

DO NOT VISIT THIS ESTABLISHMENT!!! Went there for a birthday lunch – terrible service, absolutely terrible. I had to swap the chips on my plate for the potatoes on my friend's, drinks took absolutely ages to come, and there was a huge mess-up with the bill. The worst thing was the restaurant was empty, so absolutely no excuse for such poor service. The food was OK, but nothing that warrants the prices.

I went to Cape Town Fish Market last night and not for the first time. Although I will absolutely never go back!!! It was terrible, REALLY terrible from beginning to end. We arrived for our booking and were seated downstairs. Fine. We waited a short while for our order to be taken. Fine. Our waitress then had to apologise over the VERY long wait for our starter's. Ridiculously overpriced and underwhelming food eventually arrived. I had such ridiculously thin slithers of what was meant to be calamari, I almost thought I was just eating flaky batter. My friends had oysters and squid, but SO hungry at this point that they forced it down.
After another long wait, our main meal arrived. Two of us had the butterfly prawns and new potatoes, and one had salmon and new potatoes. Our prawns were so char grilled, basically burnt, it was stupid. Some of the prawns on our plate didn't even have meat in them, just crusty outer shells. My friend said the salmon was ‘ok’, but nothing at all special. All served with bland overcooked new potatoes with a spicy dip. So, the food was pretty bad. For the simple fact that this was a birthday celebration, we did not want to spoil the entire evening by complaining at the time, and waiting god knows how long for more disappointing food to arrive.
Then the service quickly followed suit! We had asked a waiter for another bottle of wine. Fifteen minutes later it still hadn't arrived. I asked another waiter if he could please get it. He responded sharply and rudely turned his back on us muttering something about getting it. Another ten/ fifteen minutes later our waitress returned with the wine. We had, by this time finished our char grilled food. So we politely said to her, we just wanted the bill, not the wine, as we had waited so long for it. Instead of politely apologising for our wait, or any other response with some respect towards paying customers, we got attitude. She snapped back at my friends and I and said that if we had asked her for the wine, we would have got it quicker, as she was our waitress. I promptly, yet calmly, told her that if she had been anywhere near our table in the past half an hour and the least bit attentive, we would have done. She again snapped at my friends and I.
The wait for the bill took SO long again, that I had to ask another waitress to go and chase it up, really frustrating. On past visits to this place, I have bitten the bullet and paid for the ridiculously overpriced food, because my friend used to live in Cape Town, and valued the theme of the place. Yet when I had to pay £100 for three starters, three mains, a bottle of wine, a whole load of my time with heaps of attitude and arrogance, I was tempted to refuse.
I thought to myself, let it go, it's my friends birthday, and I don't want to spoil the night. But then, if it were possible the evening got worse.
We were having a drink less than twenty minutes later up the road and my friend said she felt unwell. She rushed to the ladies and proceeded to spend the next forty minutes violently throwing up all of CTFM's food.
It drew an end to our evening, as we had to get her home promptly in a taxi. Her entire body was shaking she was so unwell. I am truly appalled at how horrible our evening was at CTFM.
I am also very upset that my friends birthday was spoilt and another was so very ill from the visit.
It is just disgusting.

I went to this restaurant today and had a truly dreadful experience. In fact it was so painful we thought we were on candid camera. I had booked a table for 2 and when I arrived, I was told it would be a table near the door – which they were keeping open – despite it being November and it blowing a gale outside. I politely declined this option and asked to sit at a table for 2 that was further inside. A man purporting to be the Operations Manager said that this would not be possible and all the tables were allocated on a computer system! Computer says No!! The restaurant was totally empty as I had arrived early so I suggested that he just swap 2 tables over – this was greeted with a lot of huffing and puffing and him complaining that it would take him 20 minutes to alter the computer system. If I had not arranged to meet someone there I would have walked straight out.
We were the only 2 diners for about half an hour and there were 6 staff all lurking around the door – but we still had to wave to get their attention to order drinks and then later food.
They seemed to have a large party of pensioners in on a deal and asked us if we were part of the Saga Group – despite us being at least 30 years younger! The waiting staff were very uninformed and told us we could have fish and chips followed by a Belgian waffle as part of the deal. It took 2 attempts to say that we were not part of any group and wanted to order from the main menu
The food was disappointing – prawns were overcooked and chips soggy and slightly cold – we didnt even bother sending it back
The final straw was when we asked a waiter for the bill and his English was so poor that he could not understand. He said that he did not know what that was so we rephrased and asked if we could pay – but that was no good either – he told us he did not know what that was as it was his first day
I agree with the previous reviewer that the staff need urgent training. I can only assume that they get a lot of tourists in and so are not interested in repeat business. It also looked like the place could do with a good clean All in all – the worst dining experience I have had in London in a long time

We went here for a nice fancy lunch. We read on the website that we had to book and book we did- there was no need to do this as there were only 2 other tables of diners…at a half term tuesday.

The teppenyaki at lunch time does not allow you to sit at a teppenyaki table.

When pouring the wine, the waiter just lashed it all into a glass without letting us taste it- we would not normally care but this was a mid range bottle of wine.

Our waiter had problems understanding the difference between a starter and a main. When ordering we had to tell him about 4 times what was a starter and what was a main. He then came back 10 minutes later and informed us there was no kingclip… We then got our veggie tempura which still had dry flour between the batter and the veg.

After the starters, it took 10 minutes before the waiter came back and asked me again what I had ordered, pointing to the wrong section of the menu…when he was told twice it was a teppenyaki order. The poitje was tasteless, the teppenyaki did not have a 220g steak as advertised. The waiter did not even notice that we needed more forks and knives. Also, a finger bowl had to be requested when both members of the party were eating messy shell fish and a different waiter had to be asked for the vegetables which accompanied the teppenyaki.

The bill came and had 12.5% service added to it (standard in most places) so we left no additional tip- as we did not have the exact money we had to wait on our change- the waiter came back and counted it out coin by coin- this was rather rude.

Overall, i would not waste my money or time going here. They need to sort out their staff and their prices…

Having been to a branch of this restaurant in Cape Town – i was looking forward to visiting the new UK site. Unfortunately it was one of the worst diring experiences i have had in recent years. The design of the restaurant and the attention to detail is terrfic,,, unfortunately this attention to detail wasn't carried through to the kitchen. It was overpriced and badly cooked – the calarmari seemed like it was frozen and the chips seemed of the oven variety. The general manager who was apparently there seemed disinterested in our complaints… and after two attempts at a decent meal we left,. A very disappointing experience and a waste of time.