The perfect afternoon treat for seafood lovers
Regular readers will testify that I have a soft spot for the Mayfair Chippy, along with a passion for seafood and shellfish. So I imagine my excitement to visit “The Chippy” for their rather cleverly named Afternoon Sea. So what is Afternoon Sea? It is obviously a play on Afternoon Tea, of which Mayfair has many fine exponents of the traditional version. So Afternoon Sea at the Mayfair Chippy involves the same 3 tiered stand similar to a traditional afternoon tea but full of the delights of the sea.
The Mayfair chippy is based on North Audley Street next door to Mercato Mayfair, which incidentally is another favourite haunt conveniently positioned next door to the chippy. You will struggle to miss the restaurant if you are on North Audley Street as it is the one with the queues outside. I’m not exaggerating when I say there are queues outside of hungry customers waiting to sample traditional British fish and chips. I have had fish and chips many times before on my visits, and they are great, but this time, I’m looking forward to a seafood treat.
If you are tempted to try the Afternoon Sea, you will need to pre-order. One advantage of booking is you bypass the queues. The Mayfair Chippy is not a big restaurant, but they make the most of every inch of space, which also includes outside dining. The decor is traditional chip shop style with simple white tiled walls.
So, in Afternoon tea fashion, we arrived at 2 p.m., which meant that as well as much anticipation for the feast ahead, we were very hungry.
Before we dived into our platter, we decided on a couple of starters from the small plates menu. On any visit to the Mayfair Chippy, I struggle not to order kedgeree scotch egg, we also share the salt and pepper squid. Both were quickly devoured, a lovely way to start.
As well as traditional fish and chips, the Mayfair Chippy has a full menu of seafood delights, crab, oysters and mussels, as well as Lobster rolls, fish fingers butties and a fantastic-looking soft shell crab burger.
So, it is time for the main event. As I mentioned previously, the platter arrived on a 3-tiered stand, and as I could see our waiter bringing it through the packed restaurant, it was hard not to notice that our platter received many admiring glances and was the centre of attention whilst it paraded its way to our table.
The platter also included three sauces, olives, freshly baked sourdough bread, and taramasalata, which were great support acts to the star of the show.
The platter arrived overflowing with seafood. On it were Cornish crab on toast, Severn & Wye smoked salmon, pickled cockles, Dressed Cornish crab, Atlantic crab claws, king prawns, Maldon rock oysters, and cooked mussels.
I won’t describe every single bite because that would be boring, and I’d quickly run out of adjectives to explain how delicious it was. It was truly excellent. It took nearly an hour to fully enjoy this amazing seafood teat.
Amazingly, after a short break and a brief rest, our lovely waitress twisted our arms, and we shared the signature dessert: sticky date pudding, toffee sauce, and clotted ice cream. The perfect pud to finish our meal, and sharing turned out to be a great idea.
So that was our Afternoon Sea adventure. If you like the very best seafood and shellfish, I feel sure you will enjoy this. Hopefully, you can see from the pictures how good it looked. The Mayfair Chippy is open 364 days a year, I have been reliably informed by the staff that queues are ever-present.
Mayfair Chippy, 14 North Audley St, Mayfair, London W1K 6WE
Afternoon Sea at The Mayfair Chippy Menu
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Mayfair Chippy Fish & Chip review
