Whitstable Oyster Fishery Co

Yes mmmmmmmmnnn

What a HUGE disappointment. This restaurant has a high opinion of its self and one I believe to be living off the town and its reputation. First of all, the the service was poor. Too many young waitresses all hanging around in bunches…whats the collective term, is it a gaggle of waitresses or herd of waitresses? Not sure.
We were a group of five on a Sunday afternoon around 2pm and the first thing we were told as we were handed the greasy paper menus was “run out of prawns!” What? You are a seafood restaurant, on the coast the the sea almost engulfing the restaurant and you have ‘run out of prawns’?? I'm surprised they never supplied us with a rowing boat to catch our own the service was that poor. As for the menu, too small boring and not enough variety. No skate wings for instance, no swordfish, no langoustines, no half of lobster, No traditional whelks, jellied eels for my South London born mum… I've mentioned the prawns..! My wife had a baked fish – plain and no taste. The bill was close to £300.00 – the wine cost a fortune but my god, saved the day! Would I go again not in a million years.

Location is the saving grace for this restaurant. Lovely setting, right on the beach, especially if you can get in the first room. We have been using this restaurant periodically for years and it has always been very patchy. Service is generally poor – frosty management never makes you feel like they remember you or your custom is valued. The prices have gone through the roof – starters average £11, mains £18, veg extra, desserts £7 and wine is quite expensive too. Then they add 10% on for service, which is very questionable.
On a recent visit our waitress was very pleasant and dealt well with our complaint but the restaurant manager was her usual frosty self. My sea bream was ok, but lacked flavour to be classed as really good. My mother's skate was tiny and arrived luke warm. She asked for it to be reheated, but it was still very bland and it lost most of its butter sauce in the reheating. We were not charged for the skate, which was good because my mother was very disappointed with it. We had sides of tomato salad and mixed leaf salad with beans, two desserts (quite nice), two filter coffees and a bottle of sparkling water. The bill was £50 including service. With the skate it would have been £70. This is quite a lot for a two course lunch without wine, so I would expect the quality of the food and service to be first class. It was a special occasion for us, so it was a disappointing experience. The refund does not compensate for the fact that the day was marred.
The beautiful location is the main reason to go back – otherwise, I think this restaurant would have gone out of business long ago.

I'm surprised by the bad reviews on here — we obviously caught them on a good day. It was bustling, friendly and we were warmly welcomed. We went on a Sunday lunchtime and the menu was excellent. Great choice of champagne and wine also. We had three courses each, including oysters, crab, whole lobster, sea bream, sticky toffee pudding and cheesecake — all fantastic, particularly the main courses. They definitely take a straightforward approach, but sometimes this really works and we were delighted with the all round experience of eating here. The location is fantastic too and we really enjoyed the atmosphere. Service was cheery and attentive. This was our first time in Whitstable and we were disappointed not to get a table at Wheelers so we can't compare the two, but we rate this restaurant highly, and we eat out a lot! Will definitely go back, I hope we catch them on another good day!

We are very sorry to say that we had an awful time here.

We ate on a Sunday lunch time. About a third of the starters and about half of the mains were not available. No alternatives were offered and it left us with a choice of cold food only, on a snowy January lunch time.

We asked it they were going to add any dishes for the evening diners, and we did not get a reply. Our serving person did not smile once and just tapped pencil on order pad as we struggled to find something on the now very limited menu we could eat.

We wrote in to voice our concerns – twice. Yet to receive a reply.

We so wanted to like and enjoy the place. We tried to make contact to understand what had gone wrong.

We walked in without a reservation and were told to wait for 10 minutes whilst the table was prepared. There were already at least 4 tables laid up and ready. It was a beautiful warm day and asked if we could eat outside. We couldn't .
We asked if we could take our drinks outside and were told we could. We have a 15 month old baby and had to clamber over the sea wall, buggy and all (the door to the outside eating area was shut and could only be opened in an emergency).
We were then called in to our table (reverse previous operation of getting back over sea defence wall, rather than use door which could have taken us easily to our table) and told that we needed to order immediately otherwise we wouldn't be able to eat at all. Hmmm.
And so we ordered quickly but we were amazed that we were not allowed to exchange the boiled potatoes for chips. To go with our fish. Instead we had to order a side order of chips. The waitress was not at all amused or interested in what we thought was a mad policy. She was obviously annoyed that we had arranged so late in the day and gave us dry and perfunctory replies to our questions. The food arrived almost too quickly but the fish was delicious and perfectly cooked.
We had 2 starters, a half bottle of wine and 2 main meals with… a side order of chips. The bill came to £70 or thereabouts – service of course had been included as otherwise tips would never been seen here. We paid our bill and went off ot find our daughter's buggy ourselves (the waitress had kindly removed it from the restaurant but she had disappeared the minute our bill had been paid). We shouted goodbye and thank you but heard nothing in reply. We left feeling ripped off and saddened that whilst the food was good, service is no longer given with a smile. Next time we'll be returning to Wheelers. This was an expensive mistake.