Rockfish Totally Rocks!

Recently, we went on a short holiday to Devon. The hotel in which we stayed (supposedly five star, but that's another matter) was such a disappointment, but thankfully Rockfish provided a much needed highlight to our stay. Finding Rockfish online, was a total Godsend!

Rockfish actually have a number of restaurants dotted around the South coast of Devon (see here for a map), but the one which we visited was situated in Torquay, right by the harbour. I wasn't sure what to expect, as I haven't been to Torquay in about 30 years, but I had heard that almost everything on the Rockfish menu (see here) could be made gluten free, so it had to be worth a visit!

It is a fairly small restaurant, decorated in a laid back contemporary beach shack chic kind of style, which I really liked. There's no parking, but there is a public car park just up the hill, a short stroll away, from the restaurant itself.

Great for dining casually, but nothing to stop one dressing up!

When we arrived, we had not booked, but as the place was almost empty, that wasn't a problem and we were soon seated, by efficient and friendly staff. The restaurant filled up as the evening went on, so if you wanted to go in the future in high season, I would definitely phone ahead to book.

Kiddo's entertainment!

Drinks soon ordered - mine a locally sourced, absolutely delicious apple juice, Kiddo was issued with a children's pack, the like of which I've never seen before in any restaurant. It wasn't just your bog-standard and over too quickly colouring sheet with word search, oh no! It was instead stuffed full of all kinds of educational and fun activities - including a kind of fishy Top Trumps, which we all enjoyed playing whilst we were waiting for our food! 

Fishy Top Trumps was really quite fun!

The boast that almost everything could be made gluten free was not an empty one. I soon found myself gleefully tucking into a plate of calamari - a starter?? An almost unheard of luxury for me!! And, oh my word! It was so good - the best I've ever tasted.

The Hub's starter - Vegetable Tempura - also came gluten free, so we all helped him out with his veg. - even the Kiddo!

I had to avoid the soya dip, but otherwise, the tempura was also suitable for me.

Kiddo has a number of choices to choose from, but, much to my surprise, stuck to cod and chips. It arrived in the form of goujons and she was soon tucking in.

Kiddo's meal

My main meal, was the Fritto Misto - minus the soya sauce and replaced with a seaweed dip instead (I didn't have to ask - what a measure of excellent service).

Fritto Misto

This I had accompanied by a lovely, lightly dressed, side salad. I could have had chips, but mindful of all the batter I was consuming, I decided to behave, and settled for pinching one of Kiddo's!

In reality, if I had put more thought into it, my main was a bit similar to my starter, but heigh ho - it's so long since I've been able to enjoy calamari in a restaurant, I was simply making up for lost time! ;)

Dessert was a little more tricky for us, but in the end we simply had no room for any more food anyway, but am pretty sure I made up for it - certainly calorie-wise - by sampling their wonderful Prosecco. 

From start to finish, this was a wonderful place to visit and the only shame was that it took so long to get there, from where we stayed, otherwise we would have been back for more! 

During our visit, we met some wonderful friendly locals, who recommended their other restaurants and said they were equally as good, which is good to know. As they seemed quite accustomed to fine dining, I would take their word for it. So if you're gluten free and find yourself in South Devon, you know where to go! You'll be doing yourself a favour by the visit.

And one other thing, it was all so reasonably priced! Our combined food and drink bill (two adults, one child, two courses) came to around £60.

Point to note: 

I have to say, this restaurant totally lived up to everything that I had hoped for. I took a bit of a gamble assuming that if they could do gluten free, then dairy free also wasn't a problem. Indeed dairy free was possible, but please note, you need to make this clear, as the standard batter they use contains milk, whereas the gluten free doesn't. The gluten free flour is also soya free - bonus!!

Rockfish have worked hard to fully comply with Coeliac UK standards. See here.

Further posts about Eating Out can be found here.

And you can also find further reviews by me, of restaurants, days out and hotels on Trip Advisor, under the same name as this blog. I am beginning to build up a list of places I have been recently, because when I was away, Trip Advisor was far more useful than any other site for finding suitable places to eat - so I think it's only fair to pay back, or even 'pay it forward', and help others.