Great service and friendly staff. Recommend a night out or food. Right on the sea front so good…read moreview.

I ordered a meal that came with a non alcoholic drink and my girlfriend ordered a meal that came…read morewith an alcoholic drink. The waitress changed our order around to save us some cash without us even having to ask. My budget was amazing. It came with chips and onion rings and a drink for less than 7 quid! I was very pleased. Also free wifi.

Reasons I love this place:…read more (1) The generous portions. (2) The chips cooked to perfection (piping hot, almost mashed in the middles) (3) The fish cooked to perfection (perfectly steamed within crispy batter) And as a bonus, it's a family run restaurant. Perfect for authentic seaside fish and chips.

Food not bad. Staff and boss need training. Turn customers away because only have 2 tables at…read morefront. Can't be bothered waiting on a couple of extra tables. Will not be darkening their doors again.

Great little village green pub, tucked away in brightlingsea, would recommend this place to…read moreeveryone!!??,

Fantastic service. Such polite staff. Amazing food and AMAZING view from their back garden Easily…read more5 stars.

This place was great! It has a fun nautical theme and it's a quick walk to the shore. The staff was…read morevery attentive and kind.

Awesome seafood! Fresh, perfectly cooked and served in large portions. I had grilled prawns and…read morestir fried veggies and they were delicious. Compatriots had grilled cod and seafood pasta and both raved about them. Servers were courteous and prompt. The ambiance is similar to a seafood restaurant in any American beach town, very friendly environment.

The best fish and chip in town. I haven't had fish and chip for a while. In general I try not to…read moreeat deep fried food. But I decided to give it a try. I ordered seafood platter for appetizer, their famous fish and chip. Both were well made. The sea food platter is well prepared, food is fresh and flavourful. The fish and chip not feel greasy at all. Cooked just right. Recommend to anyone love transitional fish and chip.

Yep, this place is great. We were wandering along the seafront looking for a place to have our…read morefirst plate of oysters and spotted this place with a few tables out front. Very casual. On the board, they advertise various kinds of oysters, fish and chips and half lobsters. They were out of the cheapest oysters so we got the local tressels, half dozen for £10. Still a good deal as they are much more in London. We also ordered a raspberry wheat beer. As we waited, we spotted the fish and chips which is ENORMOUS. Seriously, if you can, order that too. The half lobster looked pretty good too, and a great deal at £13.50. Our oysters were large, fresh and delicious, so good we came back later for another round. I was thrilled with the place. Definitely would come back for a visit.

A+ casual beachside dining. Sitting back in deck chairs in the sun with fabulous raw oysters, fish…read moreand chips and lobsters. Great experience and a very relaxed atmosphere. They also serve local beers here. I had the kentish ale which was very smooth.

We stayed in Whitstable for a few days. A lovely small town. Great location and lots of…read morerestaurants. We looked forward to dine here the first night. We knew there are no reservations, you just wait in line until a table of your liking gets free (inside our outside with a view). We arrived around 7pm and waited for a table outside. It only took about 20mins, which was less than expected. Our Bulldog was welcome as well. Got a table with amazing sunset views. Breathtaking. Sadly the location and the sunset were the only highlights that night. We enjoy fish and seafood. All over the world. Normandy, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Thailand, Japan. And so on. We've had our share of great and not so great fish and seafood. Sadly the food here belongs to the latter. Visually it was a feast for your eyes. But sadly not for your taste buds. The lobster was pretty small and very dry. Overcooked and overpriced. The oysters just ok, nowhere near irish, french or scottish quality. Not creamy enough. The shrimps were fine. But nothing near great. Best to drown them in the sauce and Mayo that came with The seafood platter was all cold food - but we knew that before ordering, nothing wrong with that. It's just the quality that was missing overall. The salmon was possibly the worst. Low quality, smelly fish. Seasnails were ok, but the small shrimp not. Just tried one. Fries came with the lobster. Soft and soggy. There was also bread and salad. I enjoyed the bread and butter the most of the whole meal. Which is a sad statement. Had some wine with our meal. 20cl mini-bottles of a quality that's best to forget. Staff was very very busy, but ok. And as I said, the views are amazing. But you could grab some take-out food anywhere and sit down somewhere on the Whitstable beach and get the same view. We really wanted to enjoy this place. But quality wasn't there. And the prices for that really way too high. Whitstable is a place to come back to one day. The Lobster Shack isn't.

Where do I start. We queued up outside to be told to be told to find our own table and then we had…read moreto order via an awkward app that charged for sending in the order. We ordered a pint of lager, a glass of prosecco, 6 oysters; a whole lobster with chilli and chorizo, a prawn and lobster roll and because the app wasn't clear, extra chips and a side salad. The £6 pint of warm lager and £8 glass of cheap prosecco came with and in plastic glasses. This was the highlight of our meal. There was no lobster detectable in the lobster and prawn roll and the prawns were almost frozen. The chips were damp and arrived in a paper tray; these are not twice cooked potato sticks of excellence, these tasted straight from the freezer to the fryer. My girlfriend wanted some ketchup to go on the damp chips, but it needs to be ordered via the app at 20p per sachet plus ordering fee. The bill at this point was North of £80 and they want 25p for sauce sachets. The salad was a limp, uninteresting mix of lettuce and cucumber with an unpleasant gloopy vinaigrette over it. The £37 lobster arrived and it was small, dried out and tough. I didn't even know it was possible to dry out a lobster while cooking it, perhaps it had been split lying under a heat lamp for half an hour. The oysters hadn't arrived. I'd had enough. So I called over a waitress. I explained my lobster was dry and tough and the oysters hadn't arrived. She literally just shrugged, that's it, nothing else. We asked if we could see the manager. A young man came over and asked with a surly, aggressive manner what the problem was. I explained that the lobster was dry and actually tough and he almost sneered "do you want another one or a refund?". No apology, no sorry, just a replacement or refund offer. I asked for the refund. I then went on to ask when the oysters were coming. To which he responded that the food delivered in whatever order it came out of the kitchen. I explained that I'm fine with this but the starter shouldn't arrive after dessert has arrived or one has left the restaurant. Instead of an apology what I got was a defiant "I've got three people shucking oysters" Which he had, at that moment, for 25 of the previous 30 minutes it was one guy working on his own. I could see him from my table. This is a case of the manager thinking that his problems should be mine when in fact my problems should be his. I am after all, the one paying for the service that he is failing to deliver with a bad attitude. I didn't mention any of the other issues with the food as the angry manager just didn't seem interested customer satisfaction or service. He left our table instructing me to go to the counter and ask for a refund before we left. My oysters must have been prioritised as they arrived on a plastic tray five minutes later. I ate the oysters which tasted nice, but had their revenge on me half an hour after we left, which was surprising as I can eat anything without issue. Perhaps there's something in the old saying about only eating shellfish when there is an R in the month. Neither of us needed to use the toilets when we were there, which is great because you need to queue outside for them. We left the Lobster Shack with the chips, salads and lobster uneaten on the table; the table service here is just delivery and clear up after you have left. All over we had an appalling experience. Even after the refund I'd ended up spending £45 for some warm drinks, half a dozen oysters and a prawn bun. It could have been turned around with a polite, friendly apology of some sort. So often what could have been a poor experience is saved by good staff who understand customer service. They don't here. The location is great, the building is great it has the ambience of a West Coast surf bar. That's where the good stuff stops. The barely existent service is surly and . unpleasant, the food awful and awfully expensive. Warm drinks in plastics cups. This is not a West Coast surf bar. I can't imagine it gets any business from locals, it's a place tourists go, regret and never return to. I certainly won't be going again and I've been eating at the parent restaurant, the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company for 30 years.

Possibly the best and freshest seafood I have ever had. The restaurant in the village square is…read morevery unassuming to look at but who needs bullshit with this food. Fresh oysters straight off the local beach. Fish pie, exquisitly made from local produce. And the desserts, unreal. Try one of 2 English treats. Sticky Toffee Pudding or Treacle Tart. Only available in the UK. Wonderful!

Some of the best and freshest seafood you'll ever get and good value and no pretends to boot. This…read moreis a lovely village worth visiting anyway but this place is a reason to visit just on its own.

I've eaten here so many times over the years (pre Yelp) that it seems heresy to give it a 3…read more I have to though, the food wasn't great, the service was poor and all in all for a Christmas get together with the in laws it wasn't great. Desert was the highlight. I feel rotten giving you a 3 Thorne as you've been great in the past, just not this visit.

Had a lovely dinner here. Great atmosphere, very good service (which is often lacking in U.K.) and…read moregreat food. Very seafood orientated which we love and lots of local specials. Had 2 course for £13.95 - leek soup then jake fillet. Hubby had mussels and then cuttlefish. Lovely drive around the river front too. We will be back again.

This review starts with a story that may well be apocryphal but it certainly got me to venture into…read morethis restaurant. It seems that, in some distant year, the restaurant was full and the guests were enjoying the excellent cuisine when one decided that his food wasn't quite to his liking. Now, the exact details of his complaint have been lost through time but the rection of the owner/chef has not. Apparantly, so incensed was he by the complaint and apparent affront to his culinary abilities that he stormed out of the kitchen and into the dining area and started throwing tea towels at the hapless diner. Sadly, I cannot confirm or deny the facts and have only been witness to a few raised voices from the kitchen but, as this is an Italian restaurant, I would expect no less. The food - which is the main point of this review - is absolutely superb. Pricey in these recessionary times but, if you want a special treat, take the plunge!