Lucky Fish — Restaurant in Dubai

DISORGANIZED, AGGRESSIVE, AND ALL AROUND MOOD KILLER

I used to love this venue. I booked it for after brunch thinking it would be a nice place for sundowners and bites for my birthday at around 5pm on a Friday. The booking was for 18 people. The night before the event, I receive a text that we would need to do a set menu for 450 AED per head minimum spend. I only received this message because I had asked if I could pre order some food for my guests. Otherwise I wouldn't have known about the set menu at all. At this point it was too late to book a different venue and too late to reorganize the event into a dinner event. My bf and I walked over to speak to the Manager directly. The head hostess joined the conversation and her decided approach was at the very best - condescending. She told us most guests were "happy"about the minimum spend and we should be too. Now, I've booked numerous large events, dinners, etc around Dubai at popular venues over the last 8 years. However, lucky fish takes the cake for being the most arrogant, condescending, and aggressive restaurant I've dealt with yet.

As a solution we agreed to meet a minimum food requirement. The manager assured us he would come over on the day of the event and help us order food for the tables, etc. On the Friday, he was nowhere to be found except when he came over to scream at us. He was getting aggressive because the rest of our 18 person party had shown up and he had nowhere to place them as he (at his own discretion) changed our reservation to only 14 people without notifying us. My bf and three other friends had to actually leave the venue so that the rest of the guests had spots to sit. Two of my guests felt the need to leave after 20 minutes as they saw there were issues with the seating and felt bad that my bf had left. There were empty tables near by and when asked if we could use the table for an hour or so we were again condescendingly told that they were waiting for guests who were spending 500 AED per head.

The most amusing part about this drama, is that we would have spent much more than the minimum spend on food and alcohol had the restaurant cooperated with our needs. Had the manager come over like he promised we would have easily met the food requirement. Alcohol is no issue with a group that size. In addition, had he kept our reservation for 18 people as discussed, more money would have been spent. Had they told us about the set menu option a week before when the reservation was made, rather than the night before we probably would have reorganized to make it a dinner event rather than a brunch and sundowners. It seems like rather than having their guests have a nice time (especially on a special event like a birthday) they only cared about one thing and quite frankly I found the behavior of management disgusting at best.

We ended up leaving as I couldn't bare to spend one more minute at the restaurant and went over to Senor Pico's who were more than welcoming with our last minute large party, and accommodating. We had a great time there.

I highly DO NOT recommend Lucky Fish as a venue if you are planning a large event, or a small event for that matter after the treatment we endured. Good luck being the new restaurant in town. That too will fade. It's...

Trying to be exclusive but sadly appearing as pretentious, disorganised and unwelcoming. Door staff are horrendous as others have noted, no smile, no hello or welcome! Most of our party struggled to get in despite having booked two tables, our friends had to come out to bring us in because they had spelt the name wrong on their booking system.

Not a single smile from the hostesses managing the seating, they couldn’t be more unfriendly or less apologetic. Came here to celebrate a birthday, we booked two tables because the table capacity is maximum 7 which is abiding by the covid regulations, sadly the two tables they offered were quite far apart despite the adjacent table being unoccupied for the majority of our visit. They then cleared one table while we used the washroom and wouldn’t allow us to sit down again despite having an hour left on our booking! We ended up having to speak to three different staff to sort it out, there was lots of ‘let me check with my supervisor’, check what, when our booking clearly stated the time?!

Waiting staff were ok but clearly understaffed as we ended up pouring our own wine and waiting a long time for drinks. The floor manager seemed unable to grasp the problem and therefore was unable to provide a solution, equally he did nothing to apologise for the dismal behaviour of the hostesses. Aside from that they messed up the bill, took a long time to deliver a cocktail and then they refused to allow the rest of us to order more drinks because they wanted us off the table so we sat watching our friend finish her drink. No apology there either, just ‘you need to leave because we need the table’, I’m well aware that turning tables is important for revenue but there’s a right way and a wrong way of approaching a customer in this situation. My friends had been there since 4pm and had eaten meals and ordered plenty of drinks.

There’s so many lovely places in Dubai to watch the sunset and have drinks, I wouldn’t recommend you waste your time here. There were a couple of tables that seemed to get a markedly better service so if you have to go, visit in a smaller group (2-3 ppl) and prepare yourself for a...

I came on a Saturday afternoon for lunch with a group of my friends. First, the place looks pretty nice with a great theme, exceptional of many mosquitoes biting us throughout lunch. Secondly, I wanted a tomato-based spaghetti and ordered the spaghetti con polpette (which I was told there were no more portions). I ended up getting the King Crab Spaghetti, and took a bite, and found that it was very lemony, zesty and made my mouth tingle; overall it was just not nice. So, I requested for another option that was tomato-based with shrimp, which tasted so much better. When it was time to pay for the food, the server which I do not know his name, (however I know he was from UK/Russian) went to each individual to charge their card/bill. I was the last person, and when he went over the bill with my order; it was understood that I had the Spaghetti with shrimp and Passionfruit punch (a huge jug of juice) which i thought I paid for. Once I got back to the hotel, I realized that I was charged $189.00. When I went back to the restaurant, it was noted that I was charged for everyone's at the tables cheese (6 of us) that was added to their pasta and charged for the King Crab Pasta that I sent back. So, I was overcharged at least $70-$90 plus. When I asked for refund, I was told that "the restaurant will be short if they give me the money back" SO the manager came out after briefing with the server to tell me that He cannot "reopen a closed check."

Long story short, there is poor poor communication from the server. If someone doesn't like the food, it should be packed/ or suggest for the guest to take it home especially if you're going to charge them for it. Not take it away and throw it away to charge the guest for food that was not consumed (I promise that I only took a bite).

If you're a splitting the bill with a group of people, make sure you review every item over and over again, because they will overcharge you with a smile on their face, they're are gentle scammers.

The thought of $189.00 for just pasta and a drink for one person is insane. This is not a Michelin star restaurant; this was just lunch...