J Sheekey Oyster Bar

Press Reviews (4)

• Giles Coren (30th March 2009)
  10/10
  
  The critic, irritatingly, favourably draws the nation’s attention to one of our favourite West End stand-bys. Heretofor, one has usually been able to walk in and get a place at the bar.
• John Walsh (16th March 2009)
  Food 3/5 stars, Ambience 5/5 stars, Service 2/5 stars
  
  The critic reviews the “spanking new bivalve bistro” adjacent to the famous Theatreland fish parlour – “a gorgeous, Art Deco mini-palace, slightly crowded but wonderfully intimate, like the state room of an ocean-going liner”. He finds it “a dream of a venue” (“chic, buzzing, convivial”), but too many dishes came cold. “You want to love it all. So how can they be so slapdash about temperatures?”.
• AA Gill (22nd December 2008)
  
  What is it about this new adjunct to London’s favourite fish restaurant that has critics running for their international comparisons? Time Out’s lady recently told us that it is “Like Paris’s Le Grand Colbert or Café Florian in Venice”, and now Mr Gill assures us it’s “part midtown Manhattan and part Left Bank Paris”. Wherever it geographically belongs, he likes it very much, and manages to imply – “[m]ost dishes were under a tenner; there’s an £8.75 lunch special, and I can’t fault it” – that it is a bit of a bargain too. [Our own review, for what it’s worth, noted how disappointingly expensive it was to eat here.]
• Jenni Muir (17th December 2008)
  5/6 stars
  
  “Like Paris’s Le Grand Colbert or Café Florian in Venice, J Sheekey is in danger of becoming an institution whose uniquely local appeal stretches far beyond London”, begins this [in our view rather OTT] review of the recent addition to the undoubtedly popular Theatreland fish restaurant. Apart from the observation that wines are “not a bargain”, though, it’s odd how the supposedly street-credible TO doesn’t at any point refer to the rather high prices.