Winners of the AA Seafood Restaurant of the Year Announced
The AA and the Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) have spent the last year sourcing the best seafood restaurants in the UK to find the AA Seafood Restaurant of the Year 2004 - 2005. According to the organisers, the winners were announced at the award ceremony this week (29 September).
The winners are:
England: The Crab at Chieveley, Chieveley
Scotland: Eeusk, Oban,
Wales: Hansons, Swansea
Northern Ireland: Shanks, Bangor
The winners are selected by the AA from 1800 restaurants listed in the new AA Restaurant Guide 2005. In addition to the four country winners there are over 250 restaurants that have been awarded ‘Best Use of Seafood’. These appear in the new AA Restaurant Guide 2005, published on 30 September, a statement said.
Howard Thomas, a trade development executive for Seafish said: “It’s wonderful to see an award recognising the quality of seafood throughout the United Kingdom. The winning restaurants typify the diversity of delicious and healthy seafood that is available in restaurants throughout the UK.”
The AA judges said of the winners: “The Crab at Chieveley is an exciting, newly developed inn and restaurant hidden in the west Berkshire countryside. Fish and shellfish is clearly the focus of this menu with deliveries from Brixham every three days. This restaurant offers high quality food at very good value – with both a la Carte and a very reasonable set lunch menu.
“Eeusk in Oban has menus based entirely on fish and shellfish, apart from a fillet steak offered at dinner. Much of the fish is landed locally and the rest comes from Scottish ports. This is a very down-to-earth restaurant: service is friendly and willing, dishes are simple and cooked to perfection.
“Hansons in Swansea is where the locals go for their fish fix. The restaurant looks out onto Swansea marina. The daily changing blackboard has choices of six fresh fish which are simply done with little embellishment, the perfect balance to this informal and relaxed restaurant.
“Shanks in Bangor is a smart three AA rosette restaurant located on the Clandeboye golf course. Good quality fish restaurants are not common in Northern Ireland, and Shanks is an inspiration to others to follow.”
*www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish European Fish Trader, Fishing Monthly, Fish Farming Today, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Fishermens’ Federation Diary, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.
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