Wild Fish Restaurant — Restaurant in Pacific Grove

Went for lunch, based on hours listed on their website, but found restaurant to be closed and only dinner hours posted on their door. Luckily, we had time to spend the afternoon in Pacific Grove, so we returned for dinner at 5:30pm and were seated immediately, without a reservation (this was a Monday). There were already three other parties seated and a very steady stream of diners continued to arrive, about half with reservations, all able to be seated, to the point where the entire restaurant was full, with one large group in the bar area.

Impressively, despite there being just one server, who also hosted, ran the bar, and bussed, as well as just one kitchen staff, every table was waited on in the most warm and professional manner and all beverages and food seemed to come out promptly and at the correct temperature, as I did not observe any issues arise at other tables (it’s a mid-size dining room and we were centrally seated, hence aware of what was going on around us). The waiter remained attentive, caring and humorous throughout our entire experience, even bringing out dessert with a candle and singing happy birthday to my fellow diner! The only issue was with the bill, where I believe the 25% happy hour discount on wine did not match what I would’ve expected based on the pricing listed on the menu, but I didn’t want to bring it up with the waiter being so busy and having already provided us stellar service.

We came after seeing Wild Fish featured two nights earlier on Check, Please! Bay Area (perhaps accounting for full house, which surprised the waiter until we told him about recent re-airing of episode), and were especially looking forward to the fish and chips. The chips and chipotle dipping sauce were amazing and we’d order them again, but the fish was not particularly tasty, definitely not crispy and seemed prepared ahead of time in a fashion that would make it perhaps easy to re-heat, plus it’s dipping sauce was entirely underwhelming. But this was not a problem for us, as the brussel sprouts (enough for four), popovers and encrusted ahi and its accompanying salad were all super flavorful, as was my $10 Happy Hour gin and tonic (from the well, not their specialty G&T, as specialty cocktails are not available as part of HH).

Dessert was so-so: we got the sticky toffee pudding, which had a burnt taste too strong for me, and the strawberry rhubarb crumble which seemed to be practically all crumble and not a lot of fruit (the first few bites were delicious, but then it seemed as if we were eating mouthfuls of almond cake). The housemade ice creams served with each were very very good (vanilla and cardamom). We got the French Press decaf for two, which would’ve served four, and that was piping hot and well flavored.

We will definitely return! Our total bill, including tax and 18% tip was just over $190, and we will definitely return for the excellent service, piped in Jazz, great spirits menu and to try the calamari, ceviche and many fish dishes that...

I have never had a dinner service be so disastrous. Whether through inexperience, incompetence, or poor management, we were not served our meals. The entire service did not go well from start to finish.

Upon arriving for our 5:30 reservation, we were told the online reservation system was not working. No problem, as there are still plenty of tables and we are seated right away.

We’re told that the chef is new, so certain items may not be available. You would think a new chef would be fully trained before staffing solo? But no problem, we’ll try a different dish if need be.

We put in an order for popovers and beers, but are told that they are out of that beer tonight. No problem, just water then.

The popovers arrive and we are missing one. It seems that it has fallen off the plate before they brought it to our table. No problem, they replace it for us.

The popover was not memorable, quite soggy and oily. They also did not give us any plates for sharing.

40 minutes into being seated, our meal order is finally taken.

As we are waiting for our food, it becomes clear that the restaurant is severely understaffed, with only one waiter and one helper serving the entire restaurant. No one at the tables around us have any food on their tables. The tables seated outside come back in to see if they’ve been forgotten. A table of 4 in the corner leave after being served only waters. We’re not sure where our waiter has gone off to. At this point, they really need to stop seating people.

An hour and a half after being seated, we flag the waiter to check the status of our food, giving them the benefit of the doubt. After some time, the waiter returns to let us know that the kitchen has lost our ticket, and our meals were never made. He offers to comp our appetizers. At this point, we’re realizing they won’t be making our food? And we must leave hungry having already waited for close to 2 hours. I suppose we should have spoken up earlier but we were giving them the benefit of the doubt. So we leave, and grab pizzas down the street instead. Keep in mind, we arrived at 5:30pm (the restaurant opens at 5) and left at 7:30pm. The tables that were seated after us still did not receive their entrees.

Quite a...

Absolutely terrible experience compared the experience at their other location (Little River). I can't believe the vast difference in food, service and ambience between the 2 places. The one in Pacific Grove was absolutely horrendous experience. The one in Little River was absolutely incredible, which was why I am shocked how horrible Pacific Grove location turned out.

Reasons why Wild Fish at Pacific Grove was an atrocious experience. -service was incredibly terrible = forgot our oysters order, he hardly came to check on us when we were the only ones at the restaurant ( on 1/15 @1230pm) because he was busy chatting it up with fellow server and chef, and had to flag him or fellow server to get any service.

-food was horrible and lacked flavor = smoked fish chowder was bland and hardly any fish in it, super thick, dark and unappealing visually sword fish egg Benedict had over cooked egg, salty hollandaise sauce, potatoes were grey and under cooked. Tasted like a bunch of salt with wilted arugula spicy shrimp boil with risotto was not spicy, uncooked risotto, very soupy and overcooked rubbery shrimp. our food took 40mins to be given over cooked and terrible tasting.

the ambience.... So many fruit flies flying around front window dirty table.

Mind you, we were the only ones in the restaurant to receive such horrible service, given a dirty table, with terribly over cooked food.

Coming from service industry myself and knowing how the other wild fish location upholds themselves, the Pacific Grove location was absolutely horrendously atrocious experience. The server could have done better taking care of his guests and quit distracting the chef so the chef could have made proper food. When the server came by once to check on us, he clearly saw the egss overdone but did nothing about it. UNFORTUNATELY, We hadn't eaten that morning because we looked forward to eating at Wild Fish. SO, we ate what we could but what a complete disappointment. We won't be returning to Wild Fish...to either locations and suggest to others to avoid at all costs the Pacific Grove Location.

Only positive, the drinks...