Loch Fyne Fish & Oyster Bar : Nottingham

Loch Fyne is one of the many places we decided on a whim to eat at while we were on our honeymoon. We were on originally aiming to eat at an Indian Joint we had just watched on Kitchen Nightmares the night before.. but alas.. they weren't open for lunch.


I also realized while we were there, that this awesome little fish restaurant, is actually a CHAIN!
A CHAIN! For God's sakes! We can't even get privately owned restaurants with this sort of quality food. I've decided Brevard Florida is officially one of the worst places for restaurants in the world. Inundated with Chili's, and TGIFs on every other corner.

Anyways, I digress.... this place... even though it was a chain... ROXORED!


The raw bar is completely open, as you can see, and we had some awesome seats right next to it, so I could watch the girl there with her mad shucking skills. From where we sat, I could also spy into their kitchen.. and watch the ever fascinating madness that happens back there. The only prepackaged anything I could see back there were OXO granules... which I assumed were for gravy making... like the bangers and mash Dave ordered.... but I was at a seafood joint.. and was totally all over some fishies. Especially after eating meat pie after meat pie after meat pie. (Not that I dislike meat pies... and Todd Sweeny was a kick-ass movie btw)




We went for their fixed menu which included an appetizer and entree for £11 (about $20)
I had the raw oysters. I love raw oysters... and being a Florida girl, I've had many. But these oysters tasted distinctly different than the ones I am used to coming from tropical waters. Their flavor was much lighter and cleaner. They were really very good... but I think I do honestly prefer my robust ones from home.



For my entree I decided to go with the whole grilled sardines. I'd never had sardines this way... and admit to have only ever eaten them from those little cans (and oh how I love them). Needless to say they are MUCH bigger... which also means much bigger bones! Although they were cooked perfectly and tasted awesome with that balsamic vinaigrette ... it took a LOT of willpower to convince my brain it was okay to chew and swallow the bones! But isn't that presentation awesome? Could you ever imagine seeing something like this in an American chain restaurant?? I think not!


To finish Dave and I both ordered an Irish coffee... done the proper way!! Yay!

So in the end, very impressed with the food.... totally envious that we don't have places like this back home (oysters a plenty... but you'd never find a whole fish bone-in of any kind anywhere save maybe an authentic Chinese or Vietnamese joint).

On the bad side.. the service was pretty crap. The staff were all nice... but it just seemed they kept forgetting we were there.. and it wasn't just us... several tables around us looked a bit confused and lost trying to spot their servers. It ended up taking over 2 hours to get through that little lunch (not that I was in a rush or anything) But our server actually left before even giving us our bill.... so... needless to say, we left no tip!!!