Rockfish — Restaurant in Plymouth

Sadly Disappointing…

My brother and I visited Rockfish Plymouth late afternoon on 6 May after watching the Coronation and enjoying a walk on the Barbican.

First impression was the tacky floor. Shoes sticking to the floor, and a horrible noise when customers and waiting staff walking by. Not sure if it was dirty or simply some misfortune with the flooring, but unpleasant and off-putting.

The location is pleasant, especially if you have a sunny, window seat looking over to the Barbican, which we did. Staff members were pleasant and friendly, and the service was swift, polite and prompt, waiting time short.

Ordered a bottle of champagne £60 and half a dozen Portland Pearl Oysters £18.95 to start. Neither the oysters or champagne were particularly good. And the poor quality, heavy, clumsy glasses - totally unsuitable for champagne - were dirty. They were replaced, but unfortunately not with better quality glasses, which was commented on with an apology from the waitress.

Decided to keep to just a selection of appetisers to test the menu; Half Pint of Norwegian Prawns - £8.95 Seafood sauce was standard and prawns very bland. Salt & Pepper Calamari - £10.95 Calamari were nice, but again a standard sauce (over-sweet chilli) and a very small portion. The staff kindly offered us a starter portion of mussels, which were good, but the alcohol (possibly vermouth?) in the sauce was too strong, as thought it were not ‘burnt-off’. Made the liquor unenjoyable. Fried Baltic Whitebait £8.25 Nice whitebait, but I have never - particularly in the South West - seen such a small portion of whitebait. I think maybe 10-12 pieces. See attached picture.

There was a wide ranging offer of fish mains but after the disappointment of the appetisers, we didn’t order anything more and decided to leave. Perhaps it would have been more sensible to have skipped the appetisers and gone for the daily catch?? I would perhaps recommend that to anyone visiting Rockfish.

At £130.05 for 2 people (with gratuity) what we had hoped would be a pleasant visit to Rockfish for an early evening celebration dinner was a considerable...

I first visited here 4 years ago, then just prior to Lockdown. I've also eaten at the Exeter branch which was a 5-star visit, hands-down. Sadly, Plymouth is lumbered with this version which seems to have forgotten about service. We arrived 10 minutes after opening and seated quickly and given a menu (but not the drinks menu). We weren't sure if we could tackle starters and mains and we communicated this to the server, so we just plumped for starters, drinks and gratis water. They arrived fairly quickly and were delicious - the best whitebait I've eaten in many years, the sardines in a tin was gimmicky but tasty nonetheless. The bread to fish ratio on the latter was a bit mean, one more piece wouldn't hurt. But it was enjoyable and pleasant to sit in the sun by the harbourside. As we had a little time before heading to the train station and the starters were decent, we decided that a Main might satisfy our appetites. Sadly, we never saw our server again (well we did but she was busy with a few big families that turned up). I made eye contact twice but still no attempt to revisit our table. By 1pm we decided that Rockfish didn't deserve another £25 of our money (a main and more drinks) and resorted to finding any server available to pay the bill for what we had eaten. He was very apologetic and humble about our disappointment on what should have been a lovely straightforward lunch treat. Rockfish Plymouth is probably losing £25 per day with poor service. That's £200 a week, potentially £1000 a month, £15000 a year if you count the times when this restaurant is very busy (which it wasn't yesterday). All the lovely food in the world won't make up for a lack of attention to detail in follow-up service. Also, the Sardine Bar wasn't open when it was supposed to be, hence heading to the restaurant - perhaps that's the...

Friendly helpful staff and a lovely coffee.

It can be difficult during these times but I was pleasantly surprised at the great service I received here. I was waiting for my brother and nephew to go to the Aqaurium and fancied a coffee. I was due to meet someone but was unsure when they may arrive, so decided on grabbing takeaway.

There was plenty of outside and covered seating so it was a nice place to sit on a pleasant day. I approached the front of the seating area and saw the usual QR menu set up so being conscious of the time, I asked one of the serving staff, how long a take away coffee might be. They said just a couple of minutes.

I asked if they'd mind me sitting down as I'd know I'd need to follow the procedures anyway through the app ect but was just waiting for my company, who may or may not be along shortly. The server id spoke to said they could take my order now if I'd like and just put it through so I'd have it whilst I wait. I said that would be great. So I ordered my latte, scanned in and sat down.

I didn't have food but a few people sat by me did and it looked great. As well as people saying how good it was.

One thing I've found and I let the staff I know to try and help out. If you have and Android phone. Sometimes you have to enable smart content in your camera settings to scan the QR codes on a menu. Not everyone has this on as default, particularly Samsung I've found.

So all in all, a very nice coffee and I think a common sense approach to working with the new systems. I look forward to visiting again with more time for a...