Bistro Rosa — Restaurant in St. Helier

Great experience. Petite but perfectly formed eatery attached to the St Helier's fish market. This proximity to the market most probably explains the veriaty and freshness of seafood ingredients on offer. We came along on Saturday night without booking, so had to return some hour or so later when the first round of diners have finished. No supprise there as the place have only 9 tables, and it is obviously enormously popular with locals. We ordered one starter - Grilled King Prawns (Spiced Gambas) in Garlic butter, and they were excellent. Fresh, suculent and very flavoursome. For mains, my partner went for Scallops and Chorizo, and myself for Monkfish and Scallops in Coconut milk based sauce. Every mouthfull was a delight. Firm but suculent Monkfish pieces were paired perfectly with Thai style sauce. Scallops fried to the perfect bite ( small niggle, thoug: scallops could have been cleaned better, to avoid chewy bits I had to park on the side of my plate). My partner did not have that problem and said that her plate of food was delicious and likewise perfectly cooked. Our meals came with acompaniments of crispy soteéd potatoes and perfectly blanched veg, making a meal quite substantial, too. Service was efficient, speedy and delivered with descretion and understated politeness. How only three people - two shefs and one person serving - manage to turn over nine tables at least twice, and deliver such a good quality cooking in such an efficient manner - it is stuff of wander. Definitely the gastronomic highlight of our long weekend...

Bistro Rosa took some finding, nestled down a side street but adjacent to what is the fish market during the daytime. Part of the dining area is inside and very compact, and part of the dining is essentially in the walkway to the fish market (a roller door separated that). It had great reviews and I was looking for a place to eat locally caught fish. Surprisingly there were no fish restaurants bar fish and chips near the harbour, so I ventured back into St Helier. I ordered King Scallops which were Perfectly cooked with their Roe for starter, and then pan roasted Turbot which was also perfectly cooked and a nice sized fillet, the latter came with Jersey Royal potatoes and mixed vegetables. The drinks choices were limited but this is a very small compact restaurant with a great food reputation/chef. I didn’t stick around for dessert but there were...

Oh dear! I so wanted to like this place!! - a fish restaurant in the fish market! The service was slow, for us this was not a great problem as we were not in a hurry but we we did get increasingly frustrated as the staff did not seem to care very much. The fish was very fresh, you could tell, but was totally ruined and overpowered by the sauce. I had Bass with Scallops in garlic, a delicately flavoured dish one would have thought, except this tasted of strongly of curry and certainly not garlic, and masked any flavour the fish may have had. My wife’s monkfish was swimming in sauce and the fish was lost. Come on! This restaurant is Tripadvisor’s Number 1 fish restaurant on the island. The restaurant is not that expensive but also not cheap,...