Seafood Cafe & Restaurant

This has been one of our favourite restaurants in St Ives for many years. The Fish and chips are the best in town in my opinion and the mussels are incredible. I would say the menu needs more options of main dishes as it is a reduced main menu with more small plate options. I miss the seafood and meat display, which hasn’t been around for a few years. The small plates are good but the old style was much better.

Excellent meal! The Seafood Cafe menu boasts classic fish-based mains, small plates and appetising range of catch of the day (they also serve meat and vegetarian options but we didn't try them out). My party was made up of three people and we had: x3 fresh oysters on a bed of sea salt; x1 Chowder; x1 Mackerel (fish of the day); x1 Monkfish (also fish of the day); x1 roasted cauliflower on a bed of cauli mash; Nice (bottled) Cornish beer. The Chowder was very tasty, it came with mussels and bacon. Both fish were pan fried, the mackerel had mouthwatering crispy skin and the monkfish was deliciously tender. Both came with a side of roasted new potatoes and a lavish sauce made with capers, onion and butter. All portions were of good size and well presented. For dessert, we shared a sticky toffee pudding; it's not like we needed that to feel full! But we thoroughly enjoyed it, and I was particularly pleased with the toffee texture and nice swap of vanilla ice cream with Cornish clotted cream. The stuff sweet-toothed people's dreams are made of! The restaurant staff was courteous and service was very speedy. We wandered in without a reservation; luckily they had a table for us for 1 hour before the booked party arrived. I'd probably want to book next time around. The only thing this venue could improve is soundproofing the dining room. It was pretty loud and I could barely hear the people I sat in front of (I don't usually have hearing problems). Overall, a great restaurant for fresh fish in St Ives! Starred on my map and 100% recommended.

The food and service are fantastic. We had chosen some of the small plate options like Squid, King Prawns, Oysters x 8 (super fresh), Breads, and the Sea Food Chowder, our deserts were a Chocolate Torte and a Trio of Cornwall Ice Creams. This was all delicious and well worth the visit. If you are a seafood lover, then this is the place to book, the food was well prepared and cooked to perfection. On our visit, we had the unfortunate experience of having a really rowdy family of 9 behind us with exceptionally poorly behaved children, not to mention the total lack of parental control. The only reason there is a 4 star rating for the atmosphere is the lack of management not dealing with the situation and confronting the table and insisting that the families behave. Unfortunately, this went on for almost two hrs before they left.

We dropped in on spec and were not disappointed. The staff were welcoming and very accommodating to our indecision when choosing the best available table(!). They had that real air of professionalism despite being young. Food came out promptly and was delicious. As we were eating staff were attentive but not intrusive and we were allowed to enjoy our drinks at our table without feeling pressured to leave. The atmosphere is very relaxed, it manages to balance being a very nice restaurant with being welcoming to all comers - families, walkers, groups and couples. Would definitely eat here again.