On The Quay — Restaurant in St Mary's

Having eaten three times in St. Mary's Hall Hotel and eaten absolutely superb well prepared and presented food we were keen to check out the competition. We wished we hadn't bothered. My wife ordered the pan-fried Hake with samphire and parisienne potatoes, the portion was very small and the skin was not in the slightest bit crispy. I had the seafood skewer made up of two medium-sized prawns (shell on), two small pieces of lobster, two small mushrooms, some slices of red onion, red and yellow pepper. I opted for a jacket potato but had to ask for butter. This was served with some sort of flat bread and a side salad. Both meals were adequate taste wise but didn't make the earth move for us. We asked for dessert, and I had a blueberry parfait with honeycomb, which was nice with a burnt flavour (I did actually enjoy it) apart from the very small flowers on the plate as garnish that were impossible to eat. My wife opted for a Chocolate delice served with coffee ice cream which she loves. The coffee ice cream did not appear and she got chocolate instead. We brought this to the waitresses attention and she said she would inform the person in charge. We were not offered a replacement and no one came to the table for a few minutes. Then the lady in charge appeared and asked us if the dessert was alright with no mention of the coffee ice cream. We then brought this to her attention and she said she would apply a small discount to the bill !!. Still no offer of the elusive coffee ice cream. Eventually she apologised and said there had been a mistake by a new member of staff. The bill appeared and a discount of 99p !!! Had been applied. We challenged this with the lady in charge and she said it was a 10% discount which we said was a joke as we didn't get what we ordered. After a while she said she could see our way of thinking and agreed to knock half of the nearly £10 amount off the bill. If she had been a little more understanding and avoided confrontation and trying to knock a paltry 99p off the bill a gratuity may have been considered mainly for the polite waitress who served us. In future we will be taking our custom back to the Hall where we know our custom will be appreciated and the food will be...

After reading the other reviews we surely must've turned up on an off day. On entry we were pleasantly surprised by the decor, however the disappointment started on ordering. The waitress flatly refused to give my daughter a smaller portion of soup to start (whereby she had an adults portion and ultimately left most of it - where is the sense in that?) And for some unknown reason the kitchen couldn't rustle up a side salad. The waitress just said no, not even an apology or a check with the chef. I had the crab cakes to start which tasted bland - you could tell it hadn't been seasoned. Myself and my wife had the sea bass with a ginger and coconut sauce for our main course. Neither of us could taste the ginger or the coconut. In fact it was more like a tasteless creamy sauce. The sea bass was surprisingly also lacking in flavour... Our daughter had the child's pasta whereby the cheese topping had been completely omitted. And I don't need to tell you about the apple crumble as my mum told the waiter that my daughter didn't like it, whereby he replied with "No, I don't like it either!" This was the final meal of our holiday and we were hoping it would go out with a bang. Unfortunately it was more like a tasteless wet squib. I certainly won't be recommending this to others, especially with the prices...

Best restaurant on St Marys

Without a doubt, after a week on the Isle of Scilly this is my Family’s favourite restaurant from our holiday. In fact over the week we struggled to find a restaurant of this quality especially when it came to fish. This was because most of the restaurants on the island said that local fish was too expensive for them to buy or too hard to get hold of.

We ended up going to “On the Quay” twice during our stay because it was so good. One of the best features of the restaurant in my opinion is that the Menu changes Daily and is small so you know that the dishes you order will be done perfectly. Both times we went no one had any complaints with elements of the meal that we were expecting to be average turning out the be the show stopper.

The most suppressing element was the wild mushroom Gnocchi which was the best I have ever had. The Lamb cooked two ways was incredible with complex flavours and the perfect accountments. However for me without a doubt the fish was the show stopper. My Pilchards were just to die for and I would happily travel back to the island just to...