Caterham, Fish & Seafood Restaurant Guide

2024 Review: Diminishing feedback in recent years makes it hard to recommend this “noisy and fun”, family-run Sardinian on Brockley Rise quite as resoundingly as we used to. Fans, though, still say it’s “a super, local Italian trattoria, with a great menu: especially the quirky ice cream and sorbet flavours”.

“Sit at the counter in crowded seafood heaven” for “fabulous oysters” (both raw and cooked) and “always the freshest fish”, say fans of the “buzzy” original branch at Borough Market, which elicits the bulk of the large volumes of enthusiastic feedback in our annual diners’ poll (the Battersea outlet seems “soulless” by comparison). Service can be “somewhat chaotic”, but is “friendly”, and although the interior is not in its first flush of youth the overall vibe is upbeat.

2023 Review: One of the bright sparks near Elephant & Castle – this attractive haunt (with cocktail bar) majors in breakfast and brunch options, but also offers a small, eclectic selection of impactful bites (the Bobo Burger, truffle pasta, Thai curry, steak, fish ’n’ chips…). We’ve rated it on limited feedback.

These “huge American-style diners” win solid ratings for their rock’n’roll (and blues and country) delivery of a “meat-heavy menu”, washed down by bucket-loads of ice-cold beers or two-pint jugs of ‘slushy’ cocktails, designed for raucous partying. The “great-value surf ’n’ turf” and lunch deals go down well, too. The original Chelsea venue opened 35 years ago, and has been joined more recently by spinoffs in Covent Garden, Canary Wharf and Westfield Stratford.

“Old established fish ’n’ chip restaurant” in the backstreets near Victoria station, whose long menu includes “a variety of great fish and seafood” (oysters, scallops, lobster, sea bream on the bone) alongside more obvious chippy classics. “Popular with regular locals”, the interior is fine but not why it’s survived since 1965.

2025 Review: With its alpine-themed interior, this Italian-ish Chelsea haunt from the team behind Goodman and Burger & Lobster opened to rave reviews just before lockdown. This year, though, its offering – combining a raw bar, with prime cuts of steak or fish from the grill and a selection of pasta – received little but opprobrium in our diners’ poll for “ridiculously overpriced and average meals” (“you don’t have a value-for-money category. If you did, this would score 0/10!”).

2023 Review: A South African-based affordable seafood brand has opened its first UK branch in a former Café Rouge on the market square; Peter ‘Fats’ Lazarides and his brother George opened their first restaurant in Pretoria – more than 300 miles from the nearest coast – in 1995, and there are now more than 215 Ocean Baskets in 19 countries – many of them in sub-Saharan Africa. We expect a roll-out to commence any day.

Open in early 2025 in Belgravia: a very posh, converted pub complete with white tablecloths and a counter for fresh fish and seafood on ice, and featuring its own-label caviar. On the first floor, there’s also an upstairs restaurant serving Basque food from the grill by ex-Brat and Barrafina chef Adam Iglesias. One initial reporter found it “very good all-round” and the press have also invariably raved. In her March 2025 review, The Guardian’s Grace Dent fell for an “utterly lovable mega-posh pretend pub”, although she acknowledged that its prices might leave “anyone remotely normally waged standing outside in the cold, staring through the window like Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Match Girl”.