Saltwater Fish Company

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Fenwick Food Hall 
Northumberland Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE99 1AR 

0191 239 6613 
 www.saltwaterfish.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

Like some petulant pop star, I don’t do requests. It’s not for the lack of opportunity. Every week I get an invite from some PR or other asking me to cover the “VIP Opening” of their new breathlessly described culinary outpost. This might sound like fun but, believe me, it’s not. 

You stand around with a glass of wine waiting for some food, and then have to feign appreciation when a few platters, primarily designed for the camera, are paraded around. There is a peculiar sub-culture that loves this sort of thing – perhaps you’ve seen them about? They’re called bloggers. Open a restaurant, send out some invites and you’ll soon have blogfuls of them, eulogising about their latest freebie. But you won’t catch me there. 

I’m way more interested in how a restaurant works under the normal run of things and I think my readers are too. How’s the service, the menu, the ambience? You won’t get answers from a frothy press night, which is why I never visit a restaurant just because I was asked to. Well, almost never. 

When you get a personal request from Terry Laybourne, you have to pay attention. Mr Laybourne has done probably more than anyone to improve the standards of eating out in this region. We all owe him one. Some time ago he messaged me that he felt the cooking at his Saltwater Fish restaurant in Fenwick’s food hall was now better than the review I’d given it in 2015. Would I consider trying it again?

Saltwater Fish Company

Food ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 

Fenwick Food Hall 
Northumberland Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE99 1AR 

See www.fenwick.co.uk

It will have escaped the attention of nobody with even a passing interest in Newcastle’s foodie scene that the venerable old girlthat was Fenwick’s food hall has been subject to a pretty full-on vajazzling. 

Where things had become a bit fusty, this new-look venue feels modern and classy, a culinary centrepiece befitting a city that has seen massive improvements in gastronomic standards over the last few years. Everyone involved can afford to feel rather pleased with themselves. 

Just as interesting as the look are the new product lines and concessions. Sayonara to the revolvingly mediocre chain sushi, hello to the excellent Ouseburn Coffee Company, premium cheese from Neal’s Yard Dairy, “clean” food from The Naked Deli and several others. For those of us who take our eating a tad more seriously than we probably ought, a trip to Fenwick has become an adventure.