Restaurant: The Fish House, Sussex

You'll find The Fish House in Chilgrove about 7 miles north of Chichester set just off the Petersfield Road. It's an unlikely location for a fish restaurant but the first clue that this was not an obstacle to success was a completely full car park at Sunday lunch time.

Having checked the menu on the Internet beforehand I arrived full of anticipation. As the name suggests The Fish House specialises in fish - all sorts of. I eat fish at least 3 or 4 times per week and when I go on holidays I sometimes eat fish all week. To say I love fish would be understating it.

First impressions as we walked in were good. There was an air of quality and elegance about the place. Judging by the cars in the car park and a quick scan around the tables it was clear that this was not an audience in search of a cheap meal. It boded well.

But then it went downhill at an alarming rate.

The Bad

We went in and stood just inside the door expecting to be asked about our reservation and shown to our table. Plenty of staff walked by us but nobody made any contact. So we walked over to the bar to see if we could get attention.

The barman blanked us. He was shucking oysters and was clearly too busy to even acknowledge a customer never mind serve one. Bad. First level of annoyance began to set in.

There was a manager-type rushing around who clearly clocked us standing there and yet still nothing happened. Staff continued to pass by. I'm now one step away from walking out. Eventually I made eye contact with the manager-type and got him to attend to us.

We got taken through in to another part of the restaurant laid more formally than the bar area outside. This place was far bigger than we had first imagined. The area where we were seated had the look of an extension to the main building. It wasn't as cosy as the main building but was nonetheless a pleasant room and with adequate spacing between tables.

Starting to calm down now that we have been shown to our table but unfortunately things keep getting worse.

We were not given any menus, no one asked if we wanted water and no one brought bread or nibblies to the table. In fact, we got blanked again for probably another 10 minutes.

Some restaurants seem to specialise in hiring staff with an inate ability to look busy whilst actually doing nothing at all and with a special talent in avoiding eye contact with customers at all costs.

Staff were wandering around but not one of them was scanning around to see if any customers needed anything. This is surely one of the most basic functions of a good waiter.

Eventually we managed to get a young girl's attention (there's a clue to the bad service in that sentence) and we eventually got the menus and ordered some water. But it didn't get any better.
To be fair the manager-type came along when we wanted to order wine and was very helpful in helping my wife select a glass of rosé wine. He even went off to get a sample for her to try before making a decision. Nice touch.

Another 10 minutes passed before we could attract somebody's attention to take our order. Another 10 minutes passed before we saw any bread or water. During this period my wife and I debated getting up and leaving as the whole thing had reached serious annoyance level.

There is just no excuse for this level of bad service in a restaurant where the prices are not cheap. It's all down to poor management and poor training.

If you're going to run a higher-end restaurant and expect people to spend £100 for lunch for two people then you had better get staff who understand the expectations of their clientele.

In addition you need a senior person/maitre d' who watches everything like a hawk. And then you've got to have a training program to ensure that standards for good service are reinforced with everybody.

Why do so many restaurants get the simple things wrong. How hard is it to greet people quickly and with a smile when they arrive? How hard is it to give them menus and serve water within 2 minutes of them sitting down?

I nearly always arrive at restaurants hungry. I doubt I'm alone in this. I go with the expectation of enjoying my food and trying 3 courses so I usually eat very lightly beforehand. So a basic need is to have some food arrive quickly.

The best restaurants can get you a basket of fresh bread and a bowl of olives (or other nibbly) on your table within a minute of you sitting down. It's not a hard thing to achieve and is a great way to keep customers relaxed. It might even buy a little extra tolerance if the service is a bit slow.

The Good

Eventually the food started to arrive and very quickly things started to look up in a big way.

A basket of bread arrived first. As I've said before, the quality of the bread that is served is usually a clue to the overall quality of the meal. Restaurants that put the effort into serving home-baked, artisan-style breads usually serve great food.

The bread at The Fish House was some of the best bread we'd ever been served in a restaurant. We had brown sourdough, poppy seed bread & caraway bread. All of them were superb with really crusty crusts. Somebody there knows how to bake great bread.

Then the starters arrived. And things got even better.

The wife's Smoked Mackerel Pate with sourdough toast was absolutely historic. Deliciously smooth with a wonderful smoky flavour. From now on all other mackerel pates will be judged against this one.

My Salt & Pepper Squid with Oriental Salad was not in the historic category but was nonetheless tasty. The benchmark for this type of dish has been set by Will Ricker is his group of pan-Asian restaurants (E&O, Eight Over Eight, Cicada etc). Their Chilli Salt Squid is historic.

Things were going well then another bad service experience started to annoy us again. We had ordered another glass of wine but had to ask again for it after more than 10 mins. Grr.

My main course of Viennoise Brill with herb crust, tomatoes, citrus and mash was another triumph. As good a piece of brill as I've ever had and perfectly cooked so that it remained moist in the middle.

The wife's Guinea Fowl, savoy cabbage and squash purée was also pronounced as fabulous.

We also tried a bowl of their Hand-made Chips. These were superb and rank just below the benchmarks set by the dripping chips at The Ginger Fox in Sussex and the triple-cooked chips at The Royal Oak near Maidenhead.

We were well stuffed at this stage but we still managed to fit in desserts. I had a delicious Chocolate Fondant and Vanilla Ice Cream and the wife ooh'd and aah'd about her Fruit Crumble and Custard. This was a lovely combination of fruits, crunchy topping and delicious vanilla custard.

I was drinking the New Zealand Peacock Ridge Chardonnay and very nice it was too.

Overall a fabulous eating experience with some outstanding dishes. When it comes to food this place rocks. The range of fish on offer is unequalled anywhere within 30 miles. This place is worthy of wider recognition if it wasn't for the dreadful service.

If I was the head chef here I would be livid at what's happening in the front of house. There is obviously a brigade of talented people working hard in the kitchen to turn out some fabulous food and they are being let down by extremely sloppy service.

My Food rating would be 9/10. I drool at the thought of the Smoked Mackerel Pate!
My Service rating would be 0/10. They failed in every way they could.