Sea Beats — Restaurant in England

I left feeling hungry and ripped off. I'd heard good things about this restaurant, both from friends and Facebook groups, so I was looking forward to trying their food as a local. The 'specials' menu looked interesting, and I ordered the whole baked monkfish in a wild garlic, mushroom and chicken butter sauce, served with hasselback potatoes at £25.50. My friend went for the baked whole lemon sole, prawns, samphire, chips and salad at £23.95. I also ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio at £22, and we chatted until the food arrived. When I saw the lemon sole arrive I was impressed, there was so much! But, when my food came I honestly thought they'd given me someone else's starter by mistake. My friend said "If I was served that, I'd be fuming" so I called the manager over. I said I was expecting more, especially as it was described as a "whole baked monkfish". I was given what looked like a quarter of a fillet, and the manager instantly apologised, saying it was his mistake stating it was a whole monkfish on the menu, and even said "people would expect much more meat". He mentioned it was described as "whole" because it may have bones in it, which was odd. He offered some salad or chips which I declined, to be honest I'd rather have the rest of the fillet, basically I wanted what I'd ordered. I was hoping he'd do something when the bill came, but I'll get to that later. So, I finished my "meal" in around ten minutes, the hasselback potatoes were very small and overcooked as you can see by the photo. The staff walked up and down, and could see I'd finished so soon, but luckily my friend's meal was plentiful and she gave me two of her prawns, some samphire, chunks of the lemon sole and loads of chips. We finished the wine and I asked for the bill which was promptly brought over. The manager apologised again, and I told him I was still hungry.. Looking at the bill, I noticed he'd taken a paltry 50p off my meal, and charged me £70 instead of £70.95. So, for a mistake made by the manager (which he admitted), the figure had been reduced by an incredibly insulting £1.45. The manager had plenty of time to come up with something realistic so I wouldn't feel so annoyed, but he didn't, and if anything made things worse with the £1.45 discount. If he'd sorted something out, I wouldn't have written this review, or told all the customers where I work about my experience, all of whom were shocked by what I was served, and the way it was handled. Before I posted this review, I messaged Sea Beats via Facebook messenger explaining the situation, I gave it over two hours but didn't get a response. Update: This review was originally posted on 28th April, but wasn't published by Google publicly due to photographs of the bill and menu which I've since removed. The owner has now decided to lie, as the monkfish was not a normal fillet, and wasn't on the bone as you can clearly see by the photo. Regarding Facebook, I received a huge amount of support in the two groups where it was posted. Here's some of the comments: "That is shocking !!! Certainly looks like a starter & not a main as advertised", "Is that a main? Wow thats awful", "Totally agree with you. Thats shocking", "To be fair i would be p...ed too" !!" "That is poor for a meal... looks like a kids portion!", "Will avoid, thank you for your feedback", "bribing with refund only if review is removed is very bad form", "Oh my goodness - this is definitely a place to avoid!" "Absolute rip off that would be going straight back for me for £25", "I'd of sent it back for that price absolute rip off" and "seabeats is at fault not the customer getting a p..s poor meal at that price". I was NOT offered a full refund, that's another lie, luckily I posted a screenshot on Facebook saying "Are you willing to remove your tripadvisor if you get £25 as it's on Google and Facebook which I think shows enough people you were not happy." - An incredibly shady way of...

Disappointing. Went here because of the good reviews on Google and recommendations by our hotel, unfortunately we ended up very disappointed. Firstly it was quite a busy night and we were seated outside, which would've been fine except there was not enough space for the table and benches, so the table legs were touching the bench, meaning we had to climb into our seats. We tried to move the table out but were told we were not allowed to as there needed to be space on the other side (where there was an empty table which stayed empty for our entire meal). I wonder what they would've done if we had been old or otherwise unable to climb into the seats.

Anyway, so for starters we ordered scallops and then garlic prawns from the specials menu. Scallops were tasty but quite a small portion. Prawns came in the shell (didn't say on the menu and staff didn't tell us) which is fine except they didn't get us anything to clean our hands (so I had to climb out of the table to go to the washroom). The prawn portion was generous although they were slightly overcooked and there was not enough sauce (only came with the garlic butter stuck to the shells) so I was left eating dry prawns and dry bread.

For mains one dish was a curious combination of bass (I think) and pork, which was fine but the root vegetables tasted funny and the portion was small. The other main was a hake fillet with pesto and potatoes and also tasted fine but again a very small portion. Overall we felt very underwhelmed and although everything was okay, we were not blown away like we expected based on the reviews. Maybe we were unlucky with what we ordered and missed out on their specialties. I think we would've been okay with the meal in general except for the price. We paid almost £80 for two starters, two mains, and one beer... With the mediocre quality and small portions we felt completely scammed.

At least the staff...

Found this place by chance when searching for some good lobster / seafood joint in Weymouth. From reservation to finish our experience was flawless. What an establishment! Food is the hero here but they are neither arrogant nor pompous about it. They pride themselves in service with humility.

Let me start off by saying I planned only on ordering the Lobster here. I wasn't sure about Lobster Thermidor never having tasted it before and they were kind enough to do a half thermidor & half garlic butter lobster. The quantity / size of the lobster was really refreshing and the dish really delivered on flavor and value. The canoe chips (excellent idea) that it came with, were extremely good. The Seabass dish was equally good, simple but great taste and a minor amend requested to the dish was accommodated straightaway. Yes, so good was the food, that I ate a second main all by myself :)

They knew their menu well and service was always with a smile and not at all intrusive in any way. They did not bother that my husband did not fancy ordering any of the veg options (as a vegetarian we were prepared for this but some restaurants are really picky about the cover charges and overall bill). There is so much others establishments can learn from this place. A shout out to the chef, the front of house and the whole team at Sea Beats. The focus is on fresh and tasty seafood and they deliver on that front for sure. We will definitely visit when in the area again.

Only suggestion would be to have a bunch of used crayons and coloring paper on hand for when the kids don't seem to leave their parents alone to enjoy such...