Livebait

Visited for the first time Saturday 23rd Feb 2008.

How disappointing, firstly, we moved seats as they put me facing a tiled wall with my back to the whole room. I requested a pint of Boddingtons bitter to start, no Boddingtons, then we ordered wine, didn't have my first choice, settled for a Sauvignon Blanc from Chile which was very good.

Starters: I ordered pan fried scallops at £9.95; my wife had the special scallops and prawns at £8.50. I received 3 scallops, luke warm with a sprinkling of spring onion and mooli. My wife did much better 2 scallops and 3 prawns with carrot and watercress salad to spruce it up.

For main I ordered a halibut steak with new potatoes and seared asparagus from the specials, my wife ordered the masala spiced sea bass with sweet potatoes and mango salsa. Again mine was luke warm, and about enough for an anorexic pygmy, 2 and a half new potatoes hidden under my halibut and approx half a spear of asparagus sliced in to tiny pieces. My wife's bass, though very nice, was again devoid of any substance, a few slices of sweet potato and a trace of salsa.

I know, I'll have a pudding to fill up, £4.75 for the bread & butter pudding with custard. Presented very nicely with a half a strawberry and a mint leaf on top but with custard that had a consistency of tap water with dough balls, the pudding varying on Moh's hardness scale from 2 to 8. Unfortunately I ate it due to hunger and when I then relayed my disappointment to the waiter his retort was that the chefs don't like doing puddings and can't really be bothered. I was still charged. With a cappucino which was good, a side order of rocket and parmesan and one glass of champagne the total bill was £96. I can think of much better places to spend that kind of money on a decent meal for two.
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Stewart from Urmston
Sunday, February 24, 2008

Pretty decent food at fairly high prices. Not a disaster by any means, but you can sure tell it's part of a chain. But as there really aren't any other seafood places in city centre, we do go there from time to time. We are never bowled over, but never terribly unhappy. A solid 5 out of 10.
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john
Thursday, January 31, 2008

Went to Livebait on Saturday afternoon- just happened to stumble across and thought the menu looked nice.

Serice was good, we were quickly shown to our table and the waiter was charming and funny. He was also very helpful when we were unsure what things were.

The menu has something for everyone, some quiet pricey. But the set menu is very good. The wine was also quite pricey.

All four of us had 3 courses and there wasnt aproblem with any of the meals.

The batter on the fish with the chips was lovely as were the chips.

Overall we all loved it and would recommend it to anyone. Glad i hadnt read the reviews before we went.
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Steph14
Monday, January 28, 2008

I found the food average at best and very expensive for what you get. In fact I found the meal to be what I would expect in a pub for less than half the price. One obviously has to pay for eating out in the city.
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Ranina
Saturday, January 12, 2008

Four of us chose from the set menu, good food, good value, attentive service. The only negative point was that I booked online and they did not have a reservation for us, despite my receiving a confirmation e-mail.
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Monday, December 10, 2007

I went to Livebait with a friend on a Tuesday night. I had the set meal deal and my friend ate from the al a carte menu. Both meals were wonderful although the a la carte menu is significantly more expensive.

The whole experience was greatly enhanced by the Daniel the waiter. Friendly, attentive and with excellent service he was a great asset to the restaurant!
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Louise Smith
Thursday, August 23, 2007

We dined at my fav. restaurant on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday and was really disappointed to find that Livebait is only my fav. restaurant Mon - Thur!! The food was ok, rather than the great it is usually - both starter and main course were dry and warm. Daniel was as charming as ever but rushed off his feet and so we had to ask for bread, wine glasses, finger bowls....No-one else came to his rescue and the manager, who is usually very chatty (weekdays!)ignored us and simply avoided us when we tried to complain at the end....no-one to be seen except Daniel! She did however find time to mess around behind the bar with the staff. Once the 9p.m. rush was over the restaurant emptied fairly steadily so no excuse really. But what naffed me off more than anything was that at 11.30 p.m. they turned the music off and cleaned up in front of the 8 remaining diners!!! Not only was it rude but it made all of us feel very uncomfortable so much so that we all openly discussed it but the staff just couldn't have cared less. We asked for the background music to be turned back on but were told only the manager could do so.....and didn't! The atmosphere died and the evening was spoilt, particularly for the two couples who were still on thier main course (and 1st date!). The bill came to £214 for the 2 of us, an expensive, disappointing evening.
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Joanna
Sunday, July 01, 2007

Five of us went last Saturday night before we went to see Cats. What more can i say be fantastic. Good food, good drink and good atmosphere.
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James
Wednesday, June 06, 2007

I simply cannot believe all the negative reviews! My husband and I dine out a couple of times a week and we love LIVEBAIT. It is un-pretentious with great food and Daniel, the waiter is great fun. I can never manage to eat all the portion served and ----- what can I say? it's great!
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annie
Monday, January 29, 2007

We enjoyed fantastically efficient and entertaining service from Daniel our waiter last month. He created a friendly and warm atmosphere and brought us tasty food to the table. He explained why the smoked prawns were a touch too salty for my palate but otherwise everything else tasted divine. Thanks Livebait for a memorably positive experience.
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Discerning Diner
Thursday, December 14, 2006