Walt's Fish Market Restaurant — Restaurant in Siesta Key

Staff were friendly and accommodated us well. Good vibe as we toured around the fish market inside, then dinning outside

First started off the Appetizers

Hush puppies has a cinnamon sugar taste at the beginning, but they flavor kicks in as you chew. I really like them, they are different from normal hush puppies

Lobster 🦞 bites are the best appetizers . Fresh crispy not heavily battered

Conch fritters are ok. chewy like expected good flavor tho, not strong or light. I will say, that these aren’t for everyone, if you are a conch person, but personally would get them again.

Calamari was average, fried crispy, fresh, exactly what I expected.

Mussels were average, but I was shocked on how much they gave you, I feel like out of all the appetizers, the muscles are the ones that’s worth the money. For the amount that you get, I would get these again. These could be it’s own entree for someone who really like Mussels. Came with toasted bread and butter also.

Grouper bites were delicious as well, they just put too much of the sauce on it, that it takes away from tasting the actual grouper itself. Overall I would get again

I got stone crab claws as well, they were basic . I don’t recommend getting them because it’s just regular crab claws. They didn’t have any unique flavor. I asked for them grilled, but I think they just probably just steamed them if I’m not mistaken. But if you’re someone who just wants some crab claws and you’re ok with just adding butter., These will be for you. But these were flavorless .

Now onto the entrée that I picked, which was the CAPTAIN'S PLATTER. you can get this 3 ways Grilled, blackened, or Fried.. I got mine grilled, and I also added on the grouper fillet, grilled, so that way I can taste both the snapper and grouper while I was here. My friends with me also got similar (CHAR-GRILLED PLATE & SOUTHERN COMFORT) Entrees one of them got there’s blacked, and the other did a mix of all 3 which was, grilled, blackened, and fried….

Everything came out hot, fresh and looked delicious…. But this is were it went negative ⬇️

None of this was seasoned at all. No herbs, no spices, no seasoning. It was just cooked on the grilled, blackened and fried with no seasoning, spices, herbs , no Nothing…. And if it was( which I would be shocked to see how they did it) , out of 3 people, they didn’t put enough on any of our entrees to taste 1 bit of it.

I tried a bit of there’s. Fried snapper, no seasoning , blackened scallop, no seasoning. No salt, no pepper, no nothing.. just seafood. Mashed potatoes had no seasoning as well. It was just whipped potatoes

Only thing that had flavor was the lobster. Which was good. But literally everything had no flavor. but just how the fish, scallop, lobster, came from the sea. Fresh with nothing added on it.

It came with butter.. but that’s not going to cut it for me.

The reason this place has a lot of reviews is because of their history. as I was told this business had been open for over 100 years. So the history of the place makes it more popular, than a lot of the food here does.

Everything was fresh, appetizers were delicious. If you stop here, after seeing the highest reviews in Sarasota and want to try this place.. ASK THEM TO ADD SALT, PEPPER, SEASONINGS OR SOMETHING.

Overall rating for staff was a 9.6/10 Food 7.8/10

There’s a lot of seafood in Sarasota that had delicious seafood we tried. The vibe of this place was the...

Meh... I was in town recently to close a deal on a house and so I wanted to try several local Mom and Pop seafood restaurants.

Sat inside. So loud I could barely hear myself think. The waitress seemed like she was just phoning it in like she had repeated the same lines over a million times. Not friendly or personable at all

Every table is presented with their signature smoked "mullet" dip with... saltines. I have to say I was not a fan of the taste nor presentation. I'll just say it's a no for me.

For my entree I ordered the basic fried seafood basket - of fish, shrimp and bay scallops thinking how could anybody mess that up? I like to make sure a restaurant can do the basics first. Well...not so much. Sadly it was overcooked. I was also not a fan of the coleslaw. Nothing bad about it just not my style of coleslaw.

As for dessert I decided to take a piece of their key lime pie back to my hotel. I mean this IS Florida, right? I would expect any seafood restaurant to have an acceptable key lime pie. I received the tiniest little sliver of pie. i just rolled my eyes. I also didn't care for the taste at all. I've had better fresh key lime pie in Minnesota! All I could taste was sugar...well more like Eagle Brand sugar sweetened condensed milk. No traditional tartness nor graham cracker crust. It ended up in the hotel garbage.

The following night I went to Owen's Fish Camp and was very pleasantly surprised. Outstanding friendly service and incredible food. My only complaint was the long wait time. Funny how I had no wait time at Walt's...🤔

My overall impression is that Owen's Fish Camp wanted to earn my business, while Walt's Fish Camp seem to just be going through the motions, taking their constant inflow of tourist customers for granted.

I never rule out a restaurant based upon a single visit so I'm sure I'll be trying Walt's again once I move there at the end of the month. I'll be sure and try some freshly grilled or blackened seafood next time. I just hope I get a more pleasant...

TL;DR - Waitstaff didn't seem happy to be there. Food was ok. My expectations were took high, and we left feeling like the place was overrated.

We showed up and were told 1hr 20min wait time. That was fine. When we finally got seated, our waitress quickly came up to our table, never introduced her name, and hastily asked me what I wanted to drink. The way she was looking at me made me slightly uncomfortable, like I was interrupting her night. I got my drinks, minus the water I asked for. The tropical colada is great btw.

Our waitress came back, asked us if we wanted an app, which we did, and dashed off. We got our conch fritters and eventually ordered our main course.

The female waitstaff that dropped off our food also looked like giving us our food was a fate worse than death. My food wasn't even placed in front of me, but in the middle of the table when my place was clearly open. She, too, dashed off without making sure we had everything. Our main waitress came back to check on us, and I asked for my water. She quickly got them and plopped them at our table.

The food was ok. I got the char-grilled snapper with lemon cream sauce with island rice and garlic green beans. My boyfriend got the char-grilled grouper with the lemon cream sauce and a double side of fries. I hope the spices were supposed to be as subtle as they were to allow the flavor of the fish to shine through. If not, both fish were not very seasoned. Also, I'm not sure if it's a presentation thing or a lack of skill, but both fillets were plated as if someone had checked them to make sure they were cooked through. Not very professional looking in my opinion. The lemon cream sauce wasn't that exciting. The island rice was ok. And the green beans were ok too.

Our server took our plates without asking if we wanted any boxes for leftovers. As I was paying our tab, she gave a curt "Have a good night".

Overall, the food was ok. We might've tried coming again, but the vibe from the waitstaff made us...