Ocean Cellar — Restaurant in Erongo Region

What in the name of faux high end??

Ocean Cellar, a so-called "modern" and "upscale" restaurant, left me with a bad taste—not just from the food but also from its baffling dress code and unjust management practices. As someone who had just spent time on the nearby beach, I walked in wearing a swimsuit under a shirt and loose sweater, with a pair of shorts. Nothing too outrageous for a place that is literally 100 meters from the ocean, right? Apparently, I was mistaken.

Upon arrival, I was immediately told I couldn’t enter unless I "covered up" more. The audacity of such a request, considering the location and the context, was beyond me. We’re talking about a restaurant near a public beach—what exactly are they trying to achieve by enforcing this rigid dress code? It's one thing to have guidelines for upscale dining, but asking guests to change out of perfectly reasonable beachwear seems out of touch with reality. The restaurant is in an area where casual, beach-friendly attire is the norm, and forcing people to cover up feels more like an attempt to impose outdated and elitist standards than a genuine concern for decorum.

But it wasn’t just the dress code that soured the experience—let’s talk about the food. It was bland, tasteless, and honestly, it felt like they picked it up off the floor and served it on a plate. No seasoning, no real flavor, just a sad attempt at what should have been a fine dining experience. For the price they’re charging, you expect at least a basic level of quality, but Ocean Cellar couldn't even meet that bar. The food was a letdown, and if anything, it made the dress code policy feel even more absurd—why are they so obsessed with appearances when the food clearly doesn’t back it up?

All in all, Ocean Cellar fails to live up to its supposed modern vibe and high-end image. The dress code is unnecessarily restrictive and out of touch, and the food is simply disappointing. I won’t be returning anytime soon, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone seeking a relaxing dining experience...

I can neither recommend the food nor the service. We ordered oysters, cream of cauliflower soup, fish curry and Thai green curry. The soup was tasteless and required a lot of salt and pepper for the flavour to come out. The Thai green curry was not authentic and didn't taste right, and the fish curry was too spicy. Usually, restaurants that serve curry have a scale where you can indicate how spicy you want it (e.g. mild, medium, hot). But not here. So I ended up crying non-stop while eating the fish curry. The service is also lacking. There's a huge group of waiters at the door, waiting around and doing nothing. But at where we were seated, there were only 2 waitresses doing all the hard work of taking orders, serving food, attending to any requests and getting the bill. So it was quite difficult to get any attention of the waiting staff when we needed it. It didn't help that the waitresses did not have the habit of looking around the tables when they were walking around, they were in fact looking down. The service itself wasn't exactly friendly, and I was given the wrong bill. Thank goodness I checked the items before I paid up (and you should so the same as well). Last but not least, our request to break a note for small change to pay for parking was just ignored. I gave very little tips because I didn't like the service. I regret it now. I should...

We had high expectations about this restaurant as the night before we had an excellent meal in the brewer and butcher, next door.

However we were most disappointed when you offered a special saying 600g of crayfish but then served 3 crayfish of which 2 were illegal in terms of size (which the head chef acknowledged but did not do anything about) - this is unacceptable. The staff looked blankly at me when i complained about this, to which I did not want to make a scene as it was special occasion with my girlfriend but I pay my fishing licence, I adhere to rules and regulations and 6.5 cm from the eye socket to the carapace is an easy and capable size to catch....... then why are you serving me undersize fish and failing to do anything about this when we point it out to you!

Starters were good but the above did leave a sour taste. The food is higher priced so we expect the sustainability and sourcing of fish to match this. If you are dining here please insure standards are met, 6.5 cm from the back of the eye socket to the end of the head, to be honest it should not even be considered in a restaurant as one could literally jump into the sea 50 m away and pull out a bigger specimen. Management please reply if you want a photo as have...