Chafe's Landing Restaurant — Restaurant in Petty Harbour-Maddox Cove

I have made repeated visits to Chafe's Landing over the last 6 months. I make a point to have a meal each time I am in St John's.

I'll be reviewing 4 dishes from different visits.

Lobster Mac & Cheese This is a well executed increasingly staple dish on the east coast. Perfectly cooked, featuring large chunks of lobster. The lobster flavour was present amid the mountain of cheese, which made for a delightful and rich dish. Shame it's currently out of season, I'd certainly order it every time otherwise.

Seafood Chowder The seafood chowder was, to me, surprisingly excellent. It feels strange to say surprising, but the even sitting in Petty Harbour, surrounded by fisheries and water, I was surprised at just how fresh and fragrant the soup was. The seafood was decidedly tender, swimming in a rich and creamy broth. Definitely a stand out dish for me.

Fish and Chips This is the quintessential Newfoundland dish for tourists, or so I feel. So far I have yet to find a battered fish superior to Chafe's, and I have been looking. The fish is incredibly fresh and light tasting, and beautifully tender. The batter is light and crisp, offering excellent crunch. The tartar sauce is balanced, not overwhelmingly mayo or vinegar tasting. I will say the fries are fairly standard.

The Moose Burger I haven't had enough moose to say I can judge well the doneness or preparation, but I thoroughly enjoyed the moose burger. The gaminess of moose is something I enjoy, and the patty itself was very flavourful and generously portioned. Again, the fries were standard.

The 15 minute drive from St John's is well worth it, I think, for the enjoyable atmosphere of Petty Harbour, but I would (and do) make the trip regardless...

I can only review this restaurant based on my experience which was not great at all, and so many recommended it. When we got there on a Monday afternoon, we ordered a Seafood Scoff, which was to have lobster, crab, shrimp and mussels. After taking our order the server came out and said they didn’t have any lobster or crab left. Ok fair, not his fault, but a bit odd considering it’s what people come for. No signs anywhere notifying patrons of this. So we ordered the mussels and a crab sandwich (premade filling so this crab they had just not the legs). He then came out 5 min later and said no mussels or anything made in a steam pot. We ordered a poached halibut, and that too was then pulled from the menu after going back to the kitchen and relaying the info to us. We finally settled on a seared halibut. It came out and tasted fine, was nothing amazing. The crab sandwich never did come and was forgotten about. Some beer was also spilled on us during delivery. The server seemed new and was trying but it was just a really poor experience. This place came highly recommended and when you travel from far (over 3000km) for lobster, crab, mussels etc and are then required to eat something pedestrian it really takes away from the opportunity for success and an enjoyable experience. Hope others have better luck hitting this restaurant when they have the more desired items and cooking methods available. Nothing was offered to remedy all the issues, and our bill still had 2 items we never got on it so had to be reprinted twice. I honestly wouldn’t go back nor would I recommended based on what we did eat....

I recently visited Chafe's Landing with some family from away and had a pretty poor experience. We had booked an appointment for 7:00pm and had requested the group us to be seated together ahead of time. When we arrived they seated us at to tall bar tables which were separated by a path to the washrooms. I mentioned we requested group seating expecting a response along the lines of either do you mind waiting while we reseat you elsewhere or that it can't be accommodated at this time. Instead I got "it not being requested" (it was), "it's a fire hazard so I can't put these together" (valid) and "people don't usually complain about this kind of thing" (odd thing to say). I didn't make anything of it and we took our seats. I got annoyed to myself due to it being difficult at time to converse with our other table because of foot traffic as we were located next to bathroom, this only annoyed me because I knew we had requested seating and it would have eliminated the issue. Nobody came to our table for over 45 min until I went downstairs and ask for service, they didn't even update us on our order when they served the table next to us who had arrived after us. Food was good as usual, it's why we were there with family from away and while the service was friendly enough, we just never really received service. I don't write many negative reviews and it's conceivable we just had a one off experience, but it didn't seem understaffed or overbooked and regardless it just was a bad customer experience overall. I hope to see an improvement...