Dennys Seafood & Oyster Bar Restaurant

Doolallygirl

Wonderful secret fish paradise 27th April 2009

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It would be difficult to notice Dennys restaurant were you not aware of its existence. Located within Chislehurst train station (walk left through the entrance to the station), the untrained eye would walk past the door that leads in this treasure trove.

Fortunately for myself, a friend of a friend had passed on the tip to visit as he had enjoyed his experience of the restaurant a few months previous to our visit.

When booking I discovered that Dennys is closed on a Monday (much to my horror) which meant that my partner's birthday celebrations would have to take place on the Friday before. In fact this made it more of an excuse to let our hair down and enjoy more than just the one glass of wine.

On entering the restaurant we were greeted by a polite gentleman who pointed out several tables for two and told us to take our pick. We chose a corner table for some privacy and was offered a drink straight away. We picked out a bottle of wine from the extensive list of French, German, Spanish and Italian wines and was handed the food menus. There was a lot to choose from. Being a fish restaurant and being nowhere near the sea I was pleasantly surprised by the menu, finding lobster, oysters, clams, mussels, tuna, cod, salmon along with snails, lamb, steak, chicken and risotto.

On choosing our dishes my partner and I were left with the bottle of wine (which didn't come particularly cheap at near on £14 a bottle but was worth every penny!) to toast his birthday.

The starters arrived promptly although my partner was left wishing he had ordered the dozen snails instead of just the six he had ordered (although it being his first experience of snail eating he was restricting his order to six in case he didn't like them!). As it was he said that they were chewy although they didn't taste of anything but garlic which I think is a good thing!!

The dishes were cleared away quickly and the waiter was conscientious.

Along came our main courses which actually caused me to gasp! My partner had ordered the Zareula (a lightly spiced casserole dish with prawns, crab claw, mussels, clams, scallops, oyster and cod) and this was what had caused my reaction. It looked fantastic! I had ordered the Tuna and when it was delivered alone on the plate with the sides of new potatoes and fresh vegetables it looked very unexciting compared to the Zareula.

I was blown away by the flavour, texture and the way the tuna was cooked to perfection. It is easy to overcook a tuna steak and make it a very dry dish but this was still pinky in colour in the middle (although warm not uncooked) and extremely moist. It fell apart when I went to cut it with my knife which is just how tuna should be.

Obviously my partner was as overwhelmed by his zareula as I, and it took him a very long time to finish it. He said that on the down side, although his meal was delicious and he thoroughly enjoyed it, the liquid was cold by the end as he had spent so long cracking the crab claw, de-shelling the prawns and faffing about!

We were in the restaurant for two and a half hours and in that time we were joined by six or seven other tables full of people, who despite there being more space upstairs for seating, were all positioned across the deceptively large ground floor.

As the dinner was my treat I got to see the bill at the end of the evening and thought that at £90 (two bottles of wine at £14 each included) the pricing was extremely fair. I enjoyed my evening so much, and the banter with the staff was wonderful as we were made to feel very welcom, that I left a very large tip.

I will definitely be going back very soon and will be passing on the recommendation of this wonderful fish restaurant to all of my friends and family.

I cannot recommend highly enough.