A new seafood restaurant in Bengaluru offers live grills and flambés at your table

Choose from the fresh catch of the day and witness your dinner being cooked right in front of you
Seer Fish in Peri Peri Sauce
Seer Fish in Peri Peri Sauce

It was pouring and most roads leading up to our dinner venue were flooded. But that didn’t hold us back from dining at Fish Factory in Citrus on Cunningham Road. While it rained in the background, we watched our seer fish being fried and flambéed on a cooking trolley right in front of us, and served hot off the stove.

This is what Fish Factory offers — live grills and cooking. Set in the semi-open dining space of this business hotel, the seafood restaurant stocks the fresh catch of the day that’s sourced from Karwar and Goa. “We pick up small batches every morning at 4 am, when the catch arrives at the local market,” explains Chef Nachiket Vichare. So they don’t repeat the same fish every day. That evening, we had to choose from an assortment of tiger prawns, black pomfret, lobsters, sear fish, red snapper, blue swimming crabs, scampi and red mullet. 

We chose to try the Butter Garlic Prawns, Seer Fish in Peri Peri Sauce and Pomfret Samak Harra. But we started our meal with something unusual — Quail 65, while the chef was setting up the kitchen trolley for live cooking. The coating of the quail was similar to the usual Chicken 65 but what was surprising was the fact that unlike regular quails that are meagre on the meat, these Japanese quails were quite fleshy and succulent. Apart from seafood, Fish Factory serves quail and duck but not other meats. 

By now, the chef was all set to kick-off the dramatic live cooking. He started with Butter Garlic Prawns. Vertically split open, the tiger prawns were placed on the grill. Generous amounts of butter, with a mix of garlic paste and other ingredients, was added onto the prawns that were served straight from the grill. The prawn meat within the shiny red shells was delicate, cooked to perfection. The pepper garnishing added a twist to the garlic and butter flavours. The Seer Fish with Peri Peri sauce was served next. The fish fried and flambeéd in sauces, was served with peri peri sauce poured over it. The sauce that’s made in-house was not too hot or pungent unlike the usual version. The most dominating flavour was that of the chillis, but the chopped tomato added the required tanginess and this combination complemented the seer fish well. 

Lebanese flavours
The Pomfret Samak Harra, a Lebanese dish, that was cooked next left us wanting for more. Here again, the sauce is poured over the fish. Made with tomato, five spices, cumin and onions, the sauce is on the spicier side, but the combination of black pomfret with different flavours worked well. We also tried the Manga-lorean Seer Fish Curry with rice and the classic curry didn’t disappoint with the right balance of tanginess and spice. 

We ended our meal with a Lemon Cheese Cake and Tiramisu. We highly recommend the cheese cake in which the addition of lemon zest adds to the citrusy flavour; totally worth a try. Fish Factory scores well above other seafood restaurants because of its simplicity of menu that is in contrast with their theatrical live cooking offered at every table. Certainly worth the effort we had taken to drive through the stormy rains.

Rs 2,500++ for two. At Cunningham Road. Details: 45390000

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