The Company Shed

Featured reviews

• G

  Google user

  ·2 months ago

  “A wonderful spot in West Mersea owned and run by the Hayward clan (who also operate the fabulous oyster stand in London's Borough Market). The place is a wooden structure with maybe 50 covers. Booking is essential to grab your spot. Selling plates of seafood mainly sourced from the surrounding sea, it's a bring your own bottle place which charges a very reasonable £6 corkage. We snaffled oysters, crevettes with garlic aioli, house smoked salmon and bread rolls with butter. The food is INCREDIBLY fresh and up there with the best of each I've ever eaten, anywhere in the world. Staff is friendly, efficient and polite. Bill was under £50 for two of us. I can't recommend this joint highly enough and we are already planning our next trip to eat exactly the same things again. Wonderful.”

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• G

  Google user

  ·2 months ago

  “How disappointing after we read the reviews , we wanted to enjoy the shed as I had done when I lived in the lane. Tables were not cleared, three tables were still the same as when we arrived dirty dishes, plates and food . Two hours . Our food stuffed mussels were deep fried and greasy , the squid was so salty it had to be returned and replaced with king Prawns these were delicious , the crab cakes were disgusting greasy burnt and the filling was a mess . No taste of crab at all. We decided to cut our losses and call for the bill. Service was slow , whole place was jaded nothing like the photos . The table next to us has the seafood platter which did look good , they said you are best not having the cooked food as it is usually deep fried and greasy, So yes it was expensive as we only enjoyed the prawns.”

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• G

  Google user

  ·2 months ago

  “To be honest, a disappointing experience. The seafood platter on the picture is £25, which i would say is quite a lot for a very basic selection. Additional 1 mackerel was £9 ( not much at,all). Oysters are cheap - £2.5] each. We ordered a,dozen, but they were for some reason served at the end, so we had a chance to change the number to 4. Crab cakes (2) , cost £16 were patties with mostly potatoes and some crab meat, overfried, overpriced, not very tasty. It's always been a very busy place, we have been coming there once a,summer for the last 8-10 years. Though first time experience eating inside the restaurant, before we were taking food and had a picnic at the beach. I think for the future I will stick to this option. Good thing - you can take your bread and wine with you,but they also serve theirs. Very atmospheric as the hole Mersea experience. Hence are the prices. And of course it's very seasonal for the business. Another thing - a lot of dishes on the menu say - made to order. Most of most desirable ones do - e.g. dressed crab, oysters, lobster. Not sure how it works, we did get our oysters, and I understand they need to know the numbers, but not all the people are so organised to order their food in advance. Its not a company Christmas party after all.”

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• G

  Google user

  ·2 months ago

  “This is one of my most favourite restaurants in the entirety of the UK. As someone who lives overseas and hasn’t returned in over five years, I was very happy to find this place still operating as it has for the last 30. My recommendation pre-book a table pre-order seafood dressed crab platter it’s £30 per head and a perfect fresh platter of seafood cooked by their in-house team Make sure to bring butter and your own French stick of bread from the local bakery or supermarket and if you want get a bottle of the local fresh crisps, white wine or bring something of your own This is a must stop and I must eat In Essex”

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• G

  Google user

  ·2 months ago

  “Great lunch. Seafood was excellent in particular the stuffed mussels, salty prawns and oysters. The wine also went really well and service was fantastic,”

• G

  Google user

  ·4 months ago

  “I would love to give The Company Shed five stars as the food was delicious (some of the best seafood I have ever had!) but they really let them down with their service. We generally are fine with the “bring food as it arrives” vibe but our orders were spaced over about an hour between first and last dish (and we had to cancel two as they were taking so long, and one didn’t arrive!). What makes it a little confusing is we ordered several dishes in advance, and these took the longest to arrive at our table! Hopefully we just caught them on a bad day!”

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• G

  Google user

  ·5 months ago

  “Been there today to try, As love a bit of seafood. What we had was ok but I won’t be going back. Spent over 2 hours in there waiting for food mostly! (Yes there can be busy times) The girls serving were slow and hard to get hold of and we sat next to a table that didn’t get cleared for over an hour. So the flys started a little. Wouldn’t like to see what it was like in the really hot weather! Just to comment on the reply from owner, yes there was a few of our plates on that table as ours wasn’t cleared, as requested! And yes that table was like that empty for over an hour! Hope you get your grill sorted”

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• G

  Google user

  ·7 months ago

  “Bring your own drinks & bread! This place is all about the authentic seafood-lovers experience - no frills, just 10/10 fresh seafood & great service. My dad & I came here many years ago on the recommendation of Mr. Rick Stein (via the telly, of course!) and will continue to keep coming back because the food is out of this world delicious. Native oyster season is ephemeral so make sure you take advantage when it's on! The salty grilled tiger prawns and the grilled stuffed garlic mussels...I can't even begin to describe how amazing they were. I could have had 2 rounds of both! Same goes for the grilled lobster. If it's not dripping in garlic & herb butter like they do here, I'm simply not interested. The food was so good that I actually tripped up and fell, crashing into a nearby table & glassware as I was leaving! Thank you to Tiana & the other ladies who rushed to my aid to help me back up, and sorry for how manically I was laughing at my self-inflicted injuries. I think I scared you all a bit, lol! But I genuinely still laugh to this day about how embarrassing that was for me! :D Thank God there were no customers in at the time!”

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• G

  Google user

  ·11 months ago

  “I love this place. This is not a traditional restaurant so just lower your expectations a little bit before visiting, it’s a bit rough and ready and a bit cold, but that is the point. Whilst it’s BYOB - there is wine and beer on the menu, £6 corkage on wine and £1 I think on beer, so if you want to save yourself a few quid it makes sense. Do bring your own bread and butter - there is a cutting board and bread knife on every table. The seafood food is great, - people are lovely, so just get stuck into the atmosphere and enjoy it.”

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• G

  Google user

  ·1 year ago

  “A must if you are in the area. Incredible food. Highly recommend booking a table and pre ordering dishes as that just ensures you get what you want. As a table of 10 we all thoroughly enjoyed our meals. I think I will be dreaming of the oysters and scallops for the rest of the weekend. Other dishes we had and enjoyed, fish pie, tuna burger, fish cakes, potatoes, fresh prawn roll, deep fried squid and the special for us was deep fried prawns. Truly amazing seafood, and super friendly staff. I would 100% come back again. Atmosphere was great, we sat outside with the dog and just watched the world go by in the sun. Re: parking there is a small pay and display down the road and we were lucky you get a space.”

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