The Ship’s Cat — Restaurant in North Tyneside

Looked promising but shame about the food poisoning.

I dined here on 5th August 2025 during a trip to Newcastle. Arrived here, it looked really smart, great choice on the menu too. I ordered the "Mariachi Pizza" and Bombay Fries. All tasted fine. I ate this food around 8pm.

6 hours later at 2am, I woke up as I was feeling unwell. I started feeling very sick. Within about 20 minutes, I had a bad stomach and also started vomiting. My symptoms lasted all night and into the next day and evening.

This ruined a trip to Newcastle. We had booked to go to the theatre on Wednesday 6th evening (the next day) but I was too unwell to go.

I contacted The Ships Cat to report this most likely food poisoning. Before I say anything else here - I just want to say that I am not a Karen who goes around complaining or making false claims. This is the first time I have ever notified a restaurant about food poisoning.

The Ships Cat got me to fill out a form - I thought this is great standard stuff, very quick response too and I thought "wow, they do care, they're acting upon this".

What reply did I get? A very detailed text book (most likely copy and paste) reply about how it couldn't have been them that gave me the food poisoning. They listed lots of timings and basically said it can't be it. They also had "no samples" to test. They also told me they pre-cook their chicken - even if chicken is pre-cooked, it can still cause food poisoning - it may have been stored incorrectly?

I don't understand why they gave a full list about timings of food poisoning related illnesses. We are all different. Food poisoning can be different for everyone. The NHS website states that food poisoning can appear anywhere from "a few hours". If you watch a weather forecast and it says rain at 15:00, it doesn't mean it will start at that exact minute.

I went to my GP about it, they confirmed it was food poisoning. In the days before visiting The Ship's Cat, I did not consume any high risk food. Also, everything that I did consume - it was the same as what family has had - no one else has been unwell. This food poisoning was clearly from the pizza which had chicken on, and/or the Bombay Fries which also contained chicken.

At the bottom of their email back to me, they offered me vouchers for next time - does this mean they are actually guilty? Why offer vouchers when they have supposedly not caused my food poisoning? They haven't even apologised.

It has taken me 9 days to feel fully recovered - I have had to take 5 days off of work, a GP visit, missed theatre performance in Newcastle. I'm not after a payout - I'm not like that. I wasn't even going to write this review. But after the shocking response which isn't worth me replying to, I felt it would be best to write this review for potential future diners to see.

Would I recommend visiting this place or eating here? Definitely not. Spend your hard earned money elsewhere. I'm a cat lover - don't be fooled by the cute name & sign...

Decided to visit early afternoon. Very, very quiet.

With the name of the establishment, it's location and theme, I genuinely expected a big choice of fish, seafood and shellfish. Very suprised at the food offering. Three 'seafood' items on the menu, the rest is 'expensive burger joint' fayre.

We ordered cod & chips and two bowls of mussels.

The place was very quiet: four people upstairs, and we were the only ones downstairs, yet the food took nearly half an hour to arrive, which I did find quite strange, although the chef was in and out of the kitchen, evidently going to stores/freezers located elsewhere and carrying stock back to the kitchen.

The cod & chips were evidently fried in dirty oil, (this seems to be a reoccurring theme after now reading other reviews). Overly dark in colour and too greasy.

I tried one mussel, put it in my mouth, and took it straight back out. Both bowls of mussels were inedible: looked wrong, smelt wrong, tasted wrong and the sauce was split.

Son ate his fish, we sat and ate the small bowl of fries that accompanied the mussels and the sourdough crostinis.

Staff saw we weren't eating the mussels and pretty much avoided us like the plague.

Eventually we were approached, the lass smiled and took the plates away. I can't stress enough - both bowls of mussels were untouched. We were asked if we wanted more drinks to which we replied no, and asked for the bill.

Sat for nearly 10 minutes waiting for the bill, place is pretty much empty, so I went to the bar to pay. Not asked how the meal was? Did we enjoy it? etc etc - the poor lady behind the bar knew just how bad it was. I think this is why the meal took so long to arrive in the first place, the kitchen knew there was a problem with the mussels!

I politely advised her how bad the mussels were, they were untouched, they looked wrong, tasted wrong, smelt wrong and the sauce was split, the kitchen should be advised. She was evidently and obviously very embarrassed by it all.

I was presented with my bill, which she then apologised for, took it off me and gave me a new bill - minus the three drinks we had! Not the untouched mussels @ £27.90, but a pint and two bottles of cider!

I smiled, thanked her and left, never to return.

Went to be impressed, left exceptionally disappointed.

Burger joint menu. Expensive, (very expensive when you're charged for inedible food!) Poor service. Amazing...

When I wanted to visit first I attempted ringing 14 times in the space of a couple of hours, no answer. I thought to myself “if the team is incapable of picking up a phone, I don’t think I want to know what the service is like!”…and I was right. The service is practically nonexistent. You pay and order at the bar, you sit yourself down (yup, we were told to just go and find a space), you have to remind the waiters for cutlery, extra bowls etc etc. It’s basically self service! The first time I went with a group of friends, everything was alright and the food was absolutely delicious. My friend had the mussels and they were absolutely irresistible so I felt I have to try them. Came back just for that dish, this time with my bf and another friend. We were told there will be an hour wait for the food, we weren’t too fussed about that. After an hour or so the dishes arrived with 15min gaps in between each one (so we didn’t eat together) and one of the mains was missing, which then took them another 30min to make. So in total, one of us was waiting for their food for over two hours. The bill for that dish was comped, but you could tell none of the waitresses knew what to do really.

My last visit? Probably the most disappointing one. Once again, I came for the mussels and my partner has been dying to try the prawns. As always, the prawns weren’t available, even though we’ve seen them on others’ dishes! The food arrived quickly but the mussels were nothing like I remembered them to be. There was barely any sauce, and they were practically cold. I asked a young waitress whether the chef could just add more sauce to it and she couldn’t seem less bothered. She snarkly asked me if I want the bowl to be taken away, and at no interaction has she smiled or showed some customer service. My boyfriend had ordered the pasta pepperoni pizza…there was three little pastas visible on the pizza, so the dish was as a fraud.

Basically, if you want to go to a seafood Nando’s (with even worse service), come to the ships cat! Will we be back?...