The Fish Shop — Restaurant in Burrill Lake

Very Disappointing. Mostly inedible unfortuanely.

Made a special stop on the way back up the coast with a chef friend. I raved about the best fish & chips and we must stop... must have changed owners.

Fish was ok-ish, part of the fillet was reasonably moist, the rest was dry, chewy and oily. All the ends were dry and completely uneatable. I peeled off the batter on some of the fish only to find dark snapper meat which was chewy and not nice to eat, which I spat out. Nothing like the soft flaky tasty Snapper we all know and love. Definitely not fresh and way overcooked. Ate a litte and threw the rest out - Rating 3/10 - not good

Chips inedible - Rating 0/10 (yelow chips, I didn't know yellow chips were a thing! I thought they were covered in chicked salt when I asked for plain salt. But no, not chicken salt, just yellow chips. Found a few grains of plain salt only - like plain salt is expensive or something. No flavour other than oil, hard and chewy like they were old chips - horrible,)

Potato Scallops, ok but extremely oily, bad potato to batter ratio. Potato was very thin, almost no potato, but a lot of batter and packed with oil in comparison. I bought 3 in case they were good. Ate 1, wasn't impressed. Ate a 2nd, just in case of course, for testing in case I got it wrong... the 3rd went in the bin. I didn't think you could get that much oil into such a thin slice of scallop - rating 3/10 (I love a good scollap, but these are not it! A bit of work and these scollpas have potential to be grea).

Threw most of the food away. Had a nibble but couldn't eat. I was so looking forward to great fish & chips too.

Overall rating - Dissapointment on a plate... or in a cardboard box.

I apologised to my friend and gave myself an uppercut for wasting 50mins and $$$ on our journey home.

I threw the food in the bin, because I care enough about the health of seagulls to not share with and possibly poison them. Yes it was that bad!

I write this review so Gordan Ramsey...

The worst fish cocktails I've ever come across...

Me and my partner were so excited to come here while on holidays. We were craving delicious fish and chips by the ocean, and this place had a 4.5 star review.

The fish cocktails we ordered were a complete joke. I don't want to be rude or ungrateful, but honestly, they were extremely bad.

They were so small, the smallest was the size of my "thumb nail," and I have small hands... not to mention they were paper thin! Also, crumbed, not battered, which I don't believe was mentioned anywhere when placing the order.

But I have never experienced a fish cocktail like this... so sad when we were craving a thick and fluffy crispy battered fish cocktail.

The rest of the order was very mediocre. I love NZ battered muscles, but these were not fresh. They were the type of muscles you buy at Coles and Woollies in those small plastic tubs sitting in brine and marinade. Im really disappointed they were not fresh muscles.

The overall experience was about a 3/10 for me. But the fish cocktails were a 0/10

Definitely won't be going back here.

Photo of my partner holding one of the biggest fish cocktails we received. About the size of a chicken nugget and as thick as a...

Not only the best quality, most delicious fish and chips we’ve had, but also run by such lovely, patient and kind staff.

A little while ago we called them when about 20 mins away one day, having realised it was about 2 mins to closing time, just to double-check they were definitely closing at that time (I think it was a long weekend and we were hoping for a miracle). They were of course closing then and we didn’t ask any favours, but even after a massive day of serving hundreds of orders, the lovely woman who answered told me they were happy to boot up a fryer for our order and to wait for us to swing by to pick it up 🥹. So unbelievably kind. So we put in a big order, and sure enough, when we arrived, there she was standing by the closed shop with our big bag of reliably excellent food. We weren’t locals, we’re not regulars… she just did it out of kindness. We felt so guilty but were hugely appreciative. And the food was seriously excellent. Even the not-hungry passengers plowed into it with gusto once they had a nibble.

I should have written this ages ago, but was reminded to finally get around to it because we’re planning to go there again today on our way back up north and...