The Good Food Guide 1981
'We shared an enormous crawfish which had been shown to us alive and kicking half an hour before it was served.'
Richard and Jill Stein's alluringly flowered and fish-netted restaurant may have had to serve longer than it should have done for its first Guide entry, but people seem sure now that their buying and cooking are as sound as each other. 'The large local mussels in garlic and butter, and their oak-smoked ham with mushrooms in garlic mayonnaise both made delicious beginnings, and we then shared an enormous crawfish which had been shown to us alive and kicking half an hour before it was served. The abundant flesh, though less sweet than a lobster, was beautifully firm, and the salad with fennel and chives added to the overall freshness of impression' Mr Stein tries to persuade his customers to have their lobsters grilled and buttered straight from the tanks; likewise the Camel oysters (£3.30 for six) are served nature, and sea bass or salmon peel with a light butter and chive lemon sauce, a version of beurre nantais.
'Steak with an outdoor flavour' (oak chippings again) is also offered, but the short menu has little else for fish-haters apart from good soups and vegetables, and simple sweets (or cheese with home-made bread). The likeliest wines are the Sancerres and Muscadets in the £6 range, though whites from other regions, such as Poitou and Arbois, and countries (including English Adgestone ‘76) denote intelligent interest. 'Unfussy’ and mostly efficient service. More reports, please.
The Good Food Guide 1984
Richard Stein became the fish correspondent for Women’s Realm last year, which is unlikely to distract from his main living because this is a serious fish place. Lobsters start at £9, plates of shellfish are £6.95, or there’s a three-course menu at £8.
The dining room is white and well lit. Specialities are bouillabaisse – made without rascasse but with turbot, monkfish, brill, mullet, mussels and langoustines with a saffron liquor – and the local salmon trout, coated in clotted cream and tarragon, wrapped in puff pastry, baked eleven minutes and served with a reduced wine sauce. Fennel is rampant in these parts and he uses it to cure mackerel which is then served with smoked sea trout and mayonnaise.
There are good reports on non-aquatic items such as the watercress soup (’mmmmm’). Meat-eaters get a choice of steak or leg of lamb. The ice creams and sorbets are reliable but the vacherin aux fruits is the star attraction.
The Good Food Guide 1989
'The extra rating point is well earned'
Rick Stein has developed into one of the most sensitive and creative fish cooks in the country. In the mood of the late 1980s the décor offers a sense of light and space with bright white walls and plenty of daylight. The feel is almost Mediterranean. In June a delicatessen selling charcuterie and cooked dishes opened. Bedrooms overlooking the harbour have been added.
All of this has grown from the small upstairs above a night-club in the late 1970s, and the extra rating point is well earned. The place retains an easy-going seaside character with art posters and a loyal following of smart and unsmart; young and old. The menu is a grand sweep of modern thinking on fish cookery, at first seemingly a French derivative with its strident, red-brown soup, its platter of ten shellfish set on ice, and its wary conservatism (no bad thing). But hold on, there is more: Eastern spicing in the form of lemongrass and chilli for grilled prawn brochette; ginger, lime and pink peppercorns for a salmon trout marinade; five-spice powder to season scallops. ‘Happiest meal I've had in a long time’. 
The Good Food Guide 1991
'Rick Stein has turned himself into a veritable enterprise'
There are not many fish restaurants approaching this calibre in the British Isles. To ensure survival, however, Rick Stein has turned himself into a veritable enterprise, with a prize-winning cookery book (and another in preparation), uncluttered but comfortable bedrooms above the restaurant with views over town and harbour, a delicatessen selling cheese, pastries, fish soup and other specialities from the restaurant, and now a bakery making pasties to bolster out-of-season turnover.
The restaurant is still the hub of all this whirling activity. Clear, white, hard-surfaced with lots of green plants and bright posters of every art exhibition possible, the place has an unlikely city atmosphere tor a small Cornish town that is half fishing port, half-holiday resort.
‘I had probably the most expensive meal I have ever had - but the four of us were unanimous in our praise,’ even if they did find the lighting too harsh. The money is not ill-spent for materials are generously dispensed and strenuously worked for. The menu is either set price with a choice from three dishes at each course or a carte of another dozen items. The prix fixe is not expensive at all, in line with any number of country places, but escalation may occur with supplementary specials that include turbot, crayfish, lobster and salmon.
The Good Food Guide 1999
'Rick Stein has done an enormous amount to encourage public appetite for fish'
My, my, what a postbag; It's amazing what television will do for a restaurant. Even though refurbishment has brought more seats to the monochromatic dining-room with its 'brazen technicolour artwork', two sittings at dinner are still required to satisfy demand. A lively atmosphere generally prevails and ‘the food is simple, the fish fresh' much of the time. But those reporters are sharply divided. Rick Stein has done an enormous amount to educate and encourage public appetite for fish, and his own personal cooking can undoubtedly be taken as a benchmark, but he now finds himself putting his name to something that often falls a bit short.
Among successes have been 'exquisite’ softshell crabs, a rich-tasting fish soup, and appealing meurette of plaice and lemon sole made with Beaujolais. The spicier dishes work well too, from flavourful chargrilled squid with a chilli and black pepper dressing, to plump, meaty mackerel 'straight from the sea' with spices rubbed into the flesh. But reporters have also found under-par saucing, some poor timing and seasoning, and rather high prices, even for haddock and lemon sole. Like the solitary grilled steak, desserts of lemon tart, Eton mess, or orange and almond cake with vanilla sabayon tend not to cause much of a splash.
The Good Food Guide 2009
A £2.5m refit has given Rick Stein’s flagship restaurant a fresh new look, and brought a seafood bar to its heart. Here you can order anything from the menu without booking, and watch the preparation of seafood platters, sushi and sashimi. Although Rick Stein is no longer in the kitchen he is still an effective ambassador for his restaurants. This, his first, opened in 1975 and continues to reflect his passion for fish brought straight to the kitchen from the boats that tie up within sight of the restaurant. As Stein puts it, this is not supposed to be a temple of gastronomy, it’s a relaxed environment in which to enjoy exhilaratingly fresh fish.
The Good Food Guide 2025
'Legendary Cornish seafood destination'
Sitting majestically at one end of Padstow, Rick Stein's family-run flagship is truly one of the heritage addresses of British gastronomy. In business continuously since 1975, it has played a major role in overcoming what was the national ambivalence about seafood.
Read The Good Food Guide's latest review of Rick Stein's The Seafood Restaurant here.
