Fishbowl Brixton — Restaurant in London

I had a terrible experience which i am saddened to even share because my aim as always is to support black businesses.

I had a table booked for 8:30 which granted, I was 15 min late for. I had made my booking via insta DM which unfortunately I don’t think is professional anyway, so I messaged on Instagram again to let them know I’d be late and they said it’s fine they’d update my reservation. Now anyone travelling through Brixton recently will know there’s lots of one ways and roadworks which was also the reason why we were late. When I explained this on Instagram, the person told me to call the restaurant phone as they may be able to recommend parking, which I did 3 times and there was no answer.

As we walked into the restaurant, all the staff acted as if we were invisible (except the bar man) and did not acknowledge us until 15 mins later. They did not apologise for having us waiting or even have the decency to say “we will be with you in a minute”.

When we were finally addressed, the lady had a terrible attitude and said to be in a very rude tone “ok so you message on Instagram but that person isn’t here and can’t see the floor so you need to call us next time.. but I’m still going to see to you”. She spoke down to me in front of other customers and that’s unacceptable. I then told her I had called the restaurant 3 times and told her I could show her the proof if she really likes to which she replied ‘no I believe you and I’m going to seat you but I’m just saying”.

After that, we were told to sign in and again left at the door until the table was ready. We then sat down, and it took a while for our order to be taken. Food arrived and was COLD, it could of been very dangerous and we could of got food poisoning. We sent our food back and saw the lady testing it with the thermometer, almost as if we weren’t being truthful about our food being cold. We decided we wouldn’t eat here at all and spoke to the owner who apologised and quickly asked for payment of our drinks.

Now, based on the lack of customer service and our willingness to STILL give you our custom, our drinks should of been on the house, especially we were given cold food. When speaking to the manager about that aspect he said “well, I need to get paid as well. I can’t do anything with this food now”. As a customer, IT IS NOT MY BUSINESS if you have taken a loss now because the food was cold. The owner then told us he was still charging us for the drinks because he is now at a loss and “i need to eat too”.

I will not be visiting this restaurant again and I’m disappointed that as a black woman I was unable to leave the positive review that I wanted to.

From other reviews and word of mouth, it seems the bad attitude of staff in this establishment is a common theme and this needs to...

My experience at this restaurant was exactly as i expected bland like the food. Everything was fine on arrival very friendly lady had greeted us took our temperatures and gave us sanitiser and got us seated. I had ordered a ‘Jamaican dream’ cocktail which didn’t taste anything like what was written on the menu, it tasted like malibu and juice.

In terms of the food, i had ordered the salt and pepper squid & ‘cajun chips’ which for me the squid was nice however the chips were a disappointment because it just felt like they had just put a dash of peri salt on top which wasn’t very ‘cajun’. As for my friend she had ordered some prawns, a lobster tail and some chips. We had shared some food together, we were both quite disappointed with the prawns, practically no seasoning at all. We could have made it a home. As for the lobster tail, it was average in taste.

During our time in the restaurant i feel like we were being rushed the whole time, i understand there are rules and regulations that must be followed due to covid-19 however telling you customers that you only have an hour for the table was disappointing. People definitely spend more than an hour in a restaurant, i would advise maybe looking into opening earlier in the day which could give people more time to sit and have their meal for longer than an hour.

When it came to payment i found the whole process a bit intrusive as the waitress had been watching / hovering waiting for us to ask for the bill. Near the end of our meal i had ordered a cocktail but then shortly after receiving i was asked do u want the bill? My friend had told me no drink your drink and finish it, i had then rushed to finish my drink because a waitress had said they needed our table, only to be told after i finished the drink “i could have put that in a plastic cup for you” after watching me finish the whole thing.

I wish this restaurant only good things in the future however im hoping they take all the reviews in to account and make a change to become better, not only with customer service but with the...

Restaurants in Brixton are on the whole a great way to spend an evening - an eclectic mix of cuisine and drinks, engaging proprietors and creative venues.

Sadly we were left underwhelmed by Fishbowl.

We’d finished one starter before the second - merely mixed olives in a glass bowl…. which tasted like a cheap tin from a local supermarket - arrived. The sea bass was indeed delicious, nicely seasoned but that was about it. The chunky chips on both mains were bland, there was no dressing on our salads (no salt / pepper on the table either) and my mixed squid and calamari (we opted against the ‘boil bags’ because of their price) were yawningly plain and fairly tasteless. The little paper tubs on each plate contained about a quarter of a tea spoon of dip each and our tap water, which we asked for when we sat down…came with our bill.

Atmosphere? The colour / style is quite funky and being located in a railway arch boosts the fun. But despite twice asking the staff to turn the music down just a little - the table in the window has a speaker