Richmond Oysters — Restaurant in Melbourne

Great staff and customer service. Very nice manner and our glasses were never emptied. Constantly checking if we needed something and removing plates etc to clear room.

We went for grilled bread with olive oil for entree and the platinum platter for 2.

Grilled bread was done very nicely, simple but well done.

Visually the platinum platter looked amazing with cold items on the top and a large spread of cooked seafood on the bottom.

We started with the pacific oysters and they were nicely chilled but tasted fresh, then moving onto smoked salmon and sashimi salmon and tuna. Again no complaints there. It was a fresh as sashimi should be.

The final item on the cold plate were two halves of Morton Bay bugs. I found that it didn't taste as fresh as I liked it and had been boiled for quite some time. The flesh was slightly over chewy from being over boiled and just lacked that slight sweet flavor that you get similar to fresh boiled prawns straight off a boat.

Moving onto the large bottom platter, immediate from visual inspection our fried calamaris I could tell were going to be soggy. They were piled on top of each other and also sitting on top of the fried soft shelled crab. Tasting the calamari confirmed what I saw. The batter was soggy and also had a burnt taste or old oil taste to it. Was not appealing.

The fried soft shelled crab although had a nice crab taste, the batter due to the burnt oil taste ruined it.

On two scallop shells contained 4 small scallops and 4 small prawns. They were grilled. The scallops and prawns were well over cooked. Too chewy and even had a brittle texture. I had to drown out the overcooked flavor with some sweet chili sauce (which normally I only have a bit of lemon with my fresh seafood).

There were two large tiger prawns and surprisingly they were cooked very well but I can tell from the head, that although still juicy they had been frozen for a while as the shell was completely soft and brittle.

There were some baked mussels in napoletana sauce. These were the star of the platter. Cooked to perfection and the mussels were juicy and carried a fresh sweet taste. Very satisfied with this dish and was of a large serving.

There were two fillets of fish, one was a white fish and the second was Atlantic Salmon skin on. The skin was burnt from the grilling and both fillets were well overcooked. I cut a small piece of eat and left 90% of both fillets as they were unappealing.

Finally, to the main attraction of the platter was a nice sized half cut of a southern rock lobster. We asked ours to be cooked natural. It come out with the flesh already cut into cubes which made it easy to pick at and had been on ice as it was served cold. The lobster was topped with Japanese seaweed salad which offered a nice refreshing tangy flavor. The lobster itself, similar to the Morton Bay bugs were well over boiled and lacked that fresh taste. Lobster is my favorite of all seafood and yet I lacked the appetite to finish all the meat. My wife also had one to two pieces and left a small amount untouched.

The main space of the restaurant was housed by a large U-shaped glassed fridge filled with ice and seafood similar to what you see at a seafood market. Assuming this I expected the seafood to be as fresh as what I could buy at a seafood market.

Disappointed that all the lobsters and Morton Bay bugs displayed all were already boiled.

In conclusion although I had great customer service and the price was very reasonable ($300) for two people with the quantity and variety of seafood, I walked out feeling very disappointed with some main points. Seafood was over cooked and Lobster and Morton Bay bugs were not fresh.

Oh yes and there were 4 pieces of fried seafood won tons funny enough sitting in a steamed basket. Go figure that out. Had half a piece and I could have mistaken it for the dim sim from the local fish and chip shop.

If I do go again, I'll stick to the oysters and fresh sashimi salmon and tuna. Or I'll just go to South Melbourne Market and purchase...

Pathetic is the best way to describe my Richmond oysters Richmond experience. The night started well – my girlfriend had wanted to go for a while – we had some drinks and the oysters were nice (although for those who haven’t been you can spend a lot of money on oysters here). Then came time for the mains, my partner had the fish and I had surf and turf. We waited a while for it to come out and when my med rare stake came out it was a bit overdone. I mentioned it to my partner and a waiter overheard us so said he would take it back immediately. I hadn’t complained but I thought the chef must be a perfectionist so I let him take it back.

15 minutes later the chef came out of the kitchen to give me the same plate with my cold steak on it! Not only that but he was extremely rude and borderline abusive – he stood there for 10 minutes berating me that the steak was fine. He’s prob got away with this heaps of times before because he was deliberately trying to stand over me and wouldn’t engage in any conversation, just kept having a go. Some highlights of the conversation “take a photo of that and put it on facebook and everyone will tell you it’s medium rare” weird suggestion I thought as I’d come to have a nice dinner not take pics of my food. I was probably too polite to him, but it was clear that my partner was upset so I didn’t rise to his ridiculous display. Eventually he left with the stake after telling me to go next door to the pub and get one there. I had planned to just leave after complaining to the manager, but the waitress at the time, who was speechless at what had just happened (poor luck to her to have to work with that chef) got the manager who apologised and convinced us to stay, insisting I have another steak. I did, but didn’t want that chef cooking it, manager agreed and said it’d be out shortly. IT TOOK 40 MINS!

Eventually it came out (blu as it was always going to be with that nasty piece of work in the kitchen involved), the delay was insulting enough but THE CHEF CAME OUT AGAIN! The little chef came out with the blu steak, puts his hand on my shoulder and says “I think you want medium rare in future, just trying to help out”. I remained extremely polite but told him if he wanted to help he could just keep on walking, which he at least had the good sense to do.

I can’t emphasise enough what a pathetic and nasty piece of work this guy was, he had seen that he had been able to upset my partner so he came out again to try and upset us further. I don't know if he had had a bad day or something, but without any context his actions were unprofessional and unacceptable. If I were the owner and saw that I would have serious concerns.

The message here: DON'T take a date, clients, friends or family to Richmond oysters, you just can’t take the risk. This happened 2 months ago but the guy was such an ass I just couldn't help but review (first ever).

Oh, and unbelievably, we still payed for my partners meal and...

Wow - fresh, varied, not ridiculously expensive, great vibe and every single thing was delicious. Travelling from Canberra, keen for some seafood and a bit of research shows numerous recommendations for this restaurant from various sites. About a $15 Uber ride from our hotel at the Langham at Southbank in the city, we booked lunch for two and we were looked after by Nick - disarmingly honest and very relaxed and with a great way about him. We had a few questions and after he checked with the kitchen and gave us the go ahead, we ordered a dozen mornay Sydney oysters for entree to share ($57) and then designed our own platter. I’m going to dub it “The Canberra Platter” and it was fantastic! The oysters were really good, it’s becoming increasingly harder to find mornay sauce on menus, but done properly it’s a match made in heaven and these didn’t disappoint. Our bespoke platter was a kilo of bugs, half cold and half grilled, with a variety of sauces on the side (lemon butter, tartare, and dill aioli), two crumbed prawn cutlets, two bbq’d king prawns, amazing rosemary and garlic kipfler potatoes and a rocket, pear and pine nut salad. Can’t tell you how good it was. The bugs were a decent size and tasted like bugs, sweet and cooked so they just pulled whole from the shell. The prawns also tasted like prawns and I preferred the bbq king prawns to the crumbed (I read a review saying they were the best crumbed prawn cutlets in Australia, but although above average, they weren’t the best in Australia - that belongs to the Hellenic Club bistro in Canberra). To drink we had a bottle of German Hugel Riesling ($80), recommended by Nick, and a perfect pairing with seafood. My husband also had a Furphy beer and then another one which was on tap - Stomping Ground - which he said was great. So the Canberra platter worked out to be $152, and coupled with the oyster entree was a really good combination of food - not too many crumbed things and nothing we didn’t want to eat. Thank you very much and can’t wait to come back - there’s so much more to try including lobster mornay (about $150 for a whole one) and crumbed fish and chips...