Crabbish Manchester

Nice addition to the scene, selling something you can't really find anywhere else. The seafood was fresh which should always be the most important thing for a place like this. It did lack in flavour though, the Cajun sauce was okay and although we ordered it hot, this barely registered a tickle in your throat.

This is more of a treat than a regular staple, especially at the price points. They do have a good variety on seafood on offer so I would like to come back and try a few different varieties of the crabs.

I brought my mum and brother here for an early Mother’s Day meal, rang up at 6:30pm to make sure they had everything in stock to which the man said they did not have blue mussels but everything else they had. I then asked would it be best to book or can we just come in, he asked what time I said 7:30 and then he said it’s busy atm so 8pm would be better and booked me in.

We drove an hour from Liverpool, arrived at 8pm and was told there’d be a wait. After standing at the door for 5 mins with another group, the waiter comes over and tells us all to go round the corner and wait in a pub. Weird. We were forced to this dodgy pub and were waiting there for a good 30 mins, spent money on drinks because we were so thirsty and hungry from waiting.

The waiter then comes in and tells us our table is ready and to bring the drinks we had from the pub with us. We asked the manager if the live lobster was actually fresh and alive, he said yes it’s 100% fresh and the large lobster weighs about 1KG but because of the inconvenience we had with waiting he’d give us a large one for the price of a medium. Great. They then ran out of king crabs and when we ordered the fried seafood platter they were out of crab rolls so we substituted for fish fingers. All ordered and was told the wait would be no longer than 20 mins.

By 9:30 our food was still not here, we were sat right by the bar and kitchen expressing how hungry we were considering we’d been waiting since 8pm, so we asked for the fried platter first but the manager ensured us our food was coming. 15 mins later our seafood boils comes.

The large lobster he promised us was medium sized if that and definitely was not live that day as the meat was salty and weird texture. The brown crab was cooked properly but not much meat. The snow crab legs were skinny and again, lacked actual leg meat. The Cajun sauce was nice. We were literally half way through our seafood boil and our fried platter had still not arrived, we asked the manager multiple times to which he just kept going to the kitchen window and asking the chefs. A whole 20 mins it comes and was so underwhelming, the batter was thick not crispy and soggy on the inside, they had no flavour at all. Not worth the wait. The paella was appalling, dry and no flavour.

Then comes the bill at 10:45pm, at the end we were charged £7 for byob. Confused I asked what this was and turns out it was being your own beer. Sorry? We were getting charged without our knowledge for bringing our half finished glasses that we spent money on because we were forced to wait in a dodgy pub because there was no waiting space in the restaurant and the waiter literally said to bring the drinks with us to the restaurant it’s fine. Crazy.

I deffo think the prices are extortionate for the quality they offer and due to our long experience I don’t think we’ll be coming back.

Came here today with my boyfriend for his  33rd bday meal as we’d seen lots of videos about this place all over social media and we both wanted to check it out so we thought why not! Had reservations about the price point but when your paying halves it doesn’t seem that expensive, we went for the “Double Trouble” in medium garlic butter sauce , as some of the previous reviews have stated it did seem to lack in depth of flavour which was a bit disappointing but the seafood was hot and fresh and was more than enough for us (was some left overs)

Our server Marco was very polite and made our first experience eating here pleasant, you get a apron and gloves for eating(unfortunately drinks are not included in with the price but again not a deal breaker would 1 drink each would have been a nice touch!  They supply an instruction leaflet  incase you don’t know how to peel and eat the seafood, all cutlery is provided for your crab crushing needs! 🦀

Overall was a nice first time ,, never drove here before and we were anxious about the parking situation but there was a carpark opposite which was £4 for 2 hours; it was very hot humid day so we was left feeling a bit warm but would come back again!

Food was delicious. We had a good time there. Staffs were friendly also. Everything was on point plus aesthetics 😊. I will definitely go back again.

Oh what a great experience.

You can choose preset seafood boil platter or build it up yourself with shrimps, crabs, mussels, lobster, clam and other sides. We made a selection of shrimps, calamari, mussels, cran clusters, corn, and eggs. The food was super delicious and comforting. That Cajun sauce is heavenly. service was good, the staff were very good as well. The ambience is not the best but it's not bad. They have limited and very affordable drinks

I'll definitely keep returning

Order from Crabbish Manchester