Tim Hughes lands a seafood dinner to remember thanks to Loch Fyne in Jericho

It’s a Saturday evening and Loch Fyne is packed to the gunnels.

Quiet couples on dates exchange cautious glances and forkfuls of food, families eat without conversation, bored-looking kids nibble chips while tapping at phones, and, along one wall, a riot of very finely-dressed women shriek with laughter and flirt with the cheery manager.

Clearly this Jericho bolthole is doing something right.

As a lover of all things piscine, I had high hopes for Loch Fyne – notwithstanding our distance from the sea and my innate distrust of chain establishments, with their identical menus, corporate branding and bland uniformity.

I was looking for a bracing blast of salt air, and seafood bursting with freshness, cooked to perfection because, let’s face it, that’s all they really do.

And, on the whole, it delivered.

Having passed the restaurant thousands of times, I was surprised at its size. A minnow from the street, it opens into a whale of a place, yet still manages to feel intimate in its minimal downstairs space, which extends to a fish bar – from which small but chunky fillets are sliced up and served from ice.

Like pretty much everyone else there, we started with a glass of house prosecco (£4.95), before settling down to a couple of very fine oysters (£2.50 each). These came accompanied, as one would expect, with lemon and tabasco, but, being suitably fresh, required neither.

The real starter – and star of the evening – was a lovely concoction of scallops and haggis (£7.95). Slightly seared, the scallops were plump and juicy, their slight sweetness offset by the earthy tang of offal. They were served with a lemon beurre blanc and caramelised pear – a touch too sweet for my liking, but which worked well with the richly spiced haggis. A proper Scottish delight.

No main course was ever going to match that highpoint, though my lobster – a chunky Canadian specimen, whole baked and served on the shell (£24.95) – came extremely close. Half the satisfaction of lobster is tooling it out of its shell, and this proved a particularly messy – and enjoyable – affair.

It was served simply with fries and mayo – though such was the size of the beast, the chips went largely uneaten.

My friend went for a piece of sea trout which, in contrast, was pitifully small, not particularly tasty – and certainly not worth its steep £16.50 price tag. A seaweed butter accompanying both the fish and a side portion of curly kale was interesting though, and rescued the dish from mediocrity.

If you’re hungry, go for the crustacean!

After a good finger wash, after my open-lobster surgery, it was on to puddings – not because I was hungry, you understand, but to get rid of all that fishiness.

The solution was a toffee apple panna cota (£4.95) – which was light, not too sweet and just the thing to round off a fishy feast – until the next time.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. But only – and it seems obvious – if you are crazy about fish. I am, and I fell for it – hook, line and sinker.

Loch Fyne Seafood & Grill
55 Walton Street, Oxford
OX2 6AE
01865 292510