Just two months after its opening on the Riverside, the mid to high range restaurant chain Fish & Co is proving a favourite amongst locals and international visitors for its mouth-watering food and live music every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The beach-themed restaurant specialises in western-cooked seafood, but includes a wide range of other dishes.

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We order a starter platter at US$13.90, which came with home-made nachos, fried calamari, fish nuggets and prawn fritters as well as tartare sauce, tomato salsa and mango vinaigrette. Overall, the dish was delicious. The fish nuggets, made out of real fish cuts, were a melt-in-your-mouth experience (the same description applies for all the fish presented that night). While some may not like their calamari chewy, the flavours of the meal override any annoyance at the texture.

For the main course, we ordered three meals. First, the award winning New York Fish’n’Chips ($13.90). Okay, so it’s not original, but this dish beats any other fish’n’chips I’ve ever savoured. The fish was stuffed with parmesan cheese and lemon butter sauce, which blended delightfully. The fried chips had a light coating of what seemed like Moroccan spices. It was fish’n’chips with a mighty good twist.

Our second dish was Feather and Fins ($21.90). Peri-peri prawns, Moroccan fish fillet, blue mussels in lemon-garlic sauce, grilled peri-peri chicken on a bed of mashed potato and paella rice. The price may seem a little steep, but this dish is well worth every penny. While I wasn’t too much of a fan of the peri-peri prawns, they were delicately cut. A favourite was the mussels, cooked in a lemon and garlic sauce which oozed into the mashed potatoes, so that not a drop was wasted.

Our third dish was Sirloin Steak with Black Pepper Sauce ($14.90).The sauce was superb. We asked for the steak medium, but there was some debate – as usually happens in groups – as to whether the result was a little overdone. It was gulped down fast, nonetheless. The steak came with vegetables and a bed of rice cooked to perfection.

The presentation of each dish was abundant with colour and flavour and we thought all were a success.

For dessert we ordered hot fudge with ice cream. Out of the nine or so options for dessert, the hot fudge was the only one available. A slight letdown, but given the restaurant’s recent opening, the hot fudge was still irresistibly sweet and seductive. If you like fine seafood, inventive presentation and a playful dining experience, this is the spot for you.