Catch Restaurant and Oyster Bar

The English guy working the check-​in desk is a bit of an asshole (just rude and condescending) — but everyone else that works at Catch was really nice– especially the bartender.
I sat at the bar and had some chowder and the Oyster Banh Mi. It was a terrific lunch.
They do sell seafood to go, if you’d like to cook it at home. Weird– but I think it’s kind of cool too.

I went to the Oyster Bar last night for the oyster special (6 for 13 dollars) and the oysters were simply great. The staff were so nice, and I enjoyed just sitting with the oysters right in front of me, which many people might find a bit strange. I love oysters, but I do not partically care for the large pacific oyster, raw, for some reason the milky texture is just not for me. Catch did have one variety of them for those that enjoy their distictive flavor, but they had four varieties that I thought were simply delicious. The staff provided me and my friends the ingredients to make our own special sauce, since I was with my son and his friend that is a chef in Cabo San Lucas.

We dined here before making our way to the East Village for the Mikado. It was a beautiful evening so we sat on the patio (Stephen Ave. people watching). We each had a glass of rose wine and it was perfect for a hot day.
We shared a dozen oysters — ½ west coast and ½ east coast. They were fantastic, and although I don’t usually like sauces on my oysters — they were so tasty I ended up dipping my bread into the mango sauce. MMMM.
My husband had the fish and chips. The chips were ‘pomme frite’ french style and were very good, but he felt the fish was all batter and very little fish. The plate was a little light on the coleslaw too.
I ordered the smoked fried chicken which came with chorizo gravy that was so good I could have eaten it as a main dish, and it was the perfect thing to dip my hubby’s fries into. The plate comes with a stack of corn fritters/​hushpuppies in a smoky honey drizzle. I really enjoyed my meal, but felt the portion of corn fritters was a bit too much. I shared with hubby, but would have preferred 1 or 2 just to taste if I was dining alone.
I would definitely go back again for the oysters & chicken, which is weird because I assumed I would have fish as I usually try to eat the house specialty.
Food — ⁷⁄₁₀
Service — ¹⁰⁄₁₀
Atmosphere — ⁹⁄₁₀
Question: Is it wrong to love fried chicken so much? It’s my fave meal since childhood.

It was our anniversary. I wanted something special but not too formal. Located in the Hyatt, they were fantastic about everything. We booked reservations a week earlier for the Saturday (they aren’t open on Sundays) and the only complaint we had was parking. We ended up parking away because the parking lot was full. So we parked down underneath Jack Singer and Plus fifteened it to the hotel … about a 5 minute walk. The parking for The Catch and their Oyster bar is complimentary, if you can get into the lot.
The service was excellent. We booked through Open Table and the restaurant called to confirm that we would be keeping our reservation for the date and time and I mentioned it was our anniversary, so yes we would. As a result we were served complimentary bubbly. a dry Italian Presecco that was quite nice and fooled me into believing it was a Cuvee! Naughty little wine.
Since we’re eating healthy, my date (aka the long suffering husband) chose a Caesar Salad with Pancetta and I chose the orange cranberry salad. We each had a dozen fresh raw oysters with the accompanying sauces. Served on the half shell with crushed ice and small chilled sauce containers dug into that ice made for an excellent presentation and kept our oysters nice and cool while we finished our salads. Delicious. The New Zealand, PEI and Nova Scotian Oysters were fresh and fabulous with each of the sauces and just enough to leave room for dessert!
Our server explained a little about each type and even showed us how the oyster shells indicated farming or not! After a glass of Presecco we ordered a lovely Canadian Pinot Gris I’ll be buying again. The wine list was on a tablet, and was quite elegant. It is not listed on their website, so after a bit of a search … Sandhill Pinto Grigio was light, easy to drink and sold by the glass and went perfectly with the oysters.
The dessert was served in small mason style jars and topped with fresh berries and a white chocolate triangle. Chocolate cheesecake for Him and chocolate licorice pudding for Her. Lovely. And the decaf coffee didn’t taste like decaf, it was wonderful!
I would not recommend this place for families with children, there is very little on the menu that young (unless they’re very precocious and love raw seafood) children would like. The ambience is very adult and yes, you can wear your designer jeans there, in fact two of our waitresses were wearing jeans!
The Catch also has a ‘buy fresh fish’ service. It would be fresh, if the oysters were any ndication, but it has to be pre-​ordered, so planning a meal and *Evil Wicked Grin* parking is going to be considered when making such a purchase.
My Dearly Beloved is looking forward to trying The Catch upstairs for next year’s anniversary.
In the meantime, I’m glad we visited the Oyster Bar!

Whee! I went here for happy hour. My co-​worker took me out. I ordered a dozen fresh oysters, $ 6 prosecco and $ 6.00 beers. The oysters were good and the server each very well. She also was kind enough to not recommend the house wine. You know it must be bad if the server won’t recommend it. I appreciated the tip.
My friend ordered a halibut burger and a killer house salad with lots of cheese, homemade croutons and bacon. She was happy with it.
Catch is a little out of my price range, but for happy hour, it’s my kind of place.

Great seafood and excellent service.

Amazing!
First off we were visiting Calgary, and looking for a quiet, romantic place to unwind from the long trip. Plus it was easy to get to since we were staying in the Hilton where they are located!
Greeting by a very friendly waitress who showed us to the table. She asked if we were familiar with Oysters. We are, and a big fan of East Coast varieties. She continued to give us a little lesson on what varieties they had. I was so impressed by this. We were invited by the bar and actually shown each type, where they were from, and described them. Very interesting.
She also made us aware of the «happy hour» specials. Enjoyed the conversation with our waitress. Very cozy. Didn’t rush us. And absolutely loved the dining experience.
If in the area would definitely go again. Make sure to try the shrimp prawns!

Ummm… 5 stars in a hotel seafood joint… In land-​bound Calgary? Yes. The culinary gods must be crazy.
So, one good thing about cheap jet fuel is that fresh seafood can be flown almost anywhere –fresh and tasty. Case in point: Catch.
Located inside the Grand Hyatt in downtown Calgary, Catch is a individually owned restaurant, not a chain! And it is worth a visit…
There are two dining areas: one upstairs is a more formal dining and the one downstairs in a pub area, sleek and cozy, with lots of leather booths and dark wood. That is where I sat.
I enjoyed a half dozen oysters from the East Coast: Caraquets and St. Simons. They were superb and served with a lovely mignonette and fresh grated horseradish with a house hot sauce.
I followed up with the Thai noodle bowl which was a curry based shellfish and noodle dish that was in the most delicate coconut milk sauce, garnished with cilantro, and housing plenty of mussels, clams, shrimp and succulent fish bits. Fabulous!
I also quite enjoyed the wine by the glass menu. This was quite a surprise coming from inside the hotel and I couldn’t be more pleased! What a great little restaurant.

We visit this restaurant for lunch once a month. It’s a fairly high class establishment, with a more casual feel on the first floor, and a more formal feel on the second floor. The oysters are first class. East and west are a good choice, although I wasn’t a fan of the «New Zealand» ones. (too big)
The ravioli consome is really good. You don’t always need a reservation but one is recommended as we have missed it a few times, especially at lunch.

The entrance guy was not welcoming. Our waiter was kind and professional though. The steamed oysters were good. Fish and chips were so so. Generally, nice place to have seafood.

Had a good experience at Catch this evening. We started with cooked oysters (first time I’ve ever had them cooked) and now I can finally say I really like oysters! These ones were covered in breading and fried and laid back in their shells with a layer of spinach. It was a delicious appetizer! I had the sablefish with broccolini and squash and it was to die for. Perfectly cooked, tender and juicy sablefish with delicious sautéed broccolini and squash. I loved my dish! My dining companions had the sablefish as well and one had the tuna and also said it was quite good. Amidst a sea of steakhouses, Catch is a delightful respite. Decent wine selection and pretty good service make it a definite ⁴⁄₅.

A nice seafood restaurant with a good wine list. Our server was outstanding. The food was very good and they were willing to do a little mixing and matching in terms of the sides that came with the dishes.
I would certainly go here again.

I went to Catch with two girlfriends for a celebratory night out. I can’t say anything but good things about the food, but the evening took an abrupt turn for the worse when the waiter cut us off after one bottle of wine split between three people. We thought there must have been some mistake since there was no evident reason to do this. We were so shocked. One bottle might have lasted us through the dining experience had the wait for food not been so lengthy. We were left to finish our meal without wine, and left without dessert. Our experience turned from celebratory to a bad taste in our mouths. Visiting Catch was the lowest point of the weekend for us, and I am still at a loss as to why they would have cut us off. I was so offended, I was debating getting up and walking out without paying. Thinking about the situation now still upsets me.

A friend and I were walking around one night and we thought this would be a good restaurant to try since the menu looked good and the patio was packed. It was a bit of a wait but we were seated at the patio which was great.
After that, out waitress took forever to come by. When she finally came to get our drink orders we already knew what we wanted to order since we had been waiting for so long.
Since this was a seafood restaurant I had high hopes but was thoroughly disappointed. I ordered the cod which was overcooked to begin with and then it was covered in a hot broth. It was just a weird combination and it was not appetizing.
My friend ordered the mussels and she didn’t even eat half of them. It was just really not special.
Wish I had better things to say about this place but unfortunately I won’t be coming back. It did not meet my expectations at all.

Oh Catch… I so wanted to just love this place. Alas, it was sub par at best.
I came in and sat on the patio. It was Saturday afternoon and quite busy so I totally forgave the crazy slow service. When we finally got to order I ordered the halibut burger/​sammie (somewhere in between a sandwich and a burger), when the order came out I clearly had the salmon burger. I had a few bites and while it was «A-​Ok», I just really wanted to have the burger I ordered. After a while our waitress finally checked back in and asked how everything was, I let her know that I indeed had the wrong order, to her credit, even though it took her quite a while to check in, once she did she rectified it right away. Unfortunately one the halibut burger arrived, it wasn’t much better. But, what was absolutely amazing — the side salad… Seriously, best side salad I have EVER had! Delicious!

We just finished a wonderful dinner on the main floor, seafood infused! The main level is world’s apart from the upper fine dining level. We vowed never to eat upstairs again last year due to terrible service and a different menu that did not have great offerings.
H — you are a terrific server, we felt most of the time that you were there just for us. You were ever present and always clearing our table, etc.
We dined on clam chowder (Fridays on sale for $ 7 a bowl as opposed to the reg. $ 10).
We also had calamari that was well prepared, tried some oysters that tasted just like the sea. Divine. And the side order of scallops. Yum, fresh, everything and served hot when it needed to be and cold when it needed to be.
Atmosphere was ok, strange mix of music. Spanish, reggae, classical.
One note — the manager at the front in the suit hovering at the hostess stand — we would have loved it if you interacted with your guests a bit. Feedback makes you all that much better and you would have learned how much we loved our food and our server.
Parking — validated at the Hyatt. Nice.
Great location on Stephen Ave and you can go for a stroll after dinner to work off all that food!
We did not partake in dessert but they had good selections here, all made in house.
For sure, we will return even if just to sit at the bar, have oysters and watch the action in the open kitchen!!! (CASH ONLY for me for this restaurant, see below)
One additional star taken off our experience because when I got home, I checked my bank account on line and saw that Catch had overcharged my Visa account by quite a bit from what was on my receipt. This is how their system works and you have to wait days to see the Visa posting that you are actually charged what you authorized them to charge. Very silly system and found myself making several calls/​e-​mails to straighten this out. Unnecessary action on my part and I am sure I am not the only one having to deal with this hassle. Visa does not know why they overcharge initially either.)

We went to Catch and we had the fish and chips one weekend and it was alright, but i found the selection to be a bit off. Having some chardonnay was a good pairing but would have preferred a chenin blanc. I want to try this place again, maybe i can get a better opinion the second time around.
–SM

For a special occasion, I booked a reservation at Catch Restaurant and Oyster Bar. I chose the downstairs bar as I wanted a more relaxed environment. It was a hopping atmosphere! Definitely happening. It was a very busy Friday even so that we couldn’t locate any nearby parking due to many holiday parties happening around the area. They do have some complimentary self parking available at the Hyatt but they were already full.
As we were circling for quite sometime, we called the restaurant to advise them that we were running late due to lack of parking. The person on the phone apologized and told us not to worry. Once we arrived, the hostess was courteous and had our table ready. Service was prompt and the server was very informative of their menu.
We chose to get a bunch of items and share them (as per the server’s suggestion): selection of half-​dozen oysters, calamari, clam chowder (special for the evening), crab cakes and the Thai Curry Shellfish Bowl. ALL items were amazing! I was amazed at how fresh the seafood was as well as loved the presentation of items.
I’m told upstairs at Catch is quite pricey but I found our selection and bill for two reasonable for what we got. I just wish I had enough room to try dessert!
Not to worry … we’ll be back!

One of our vendors was holding an after conference shindig here and I was looking forward to it all day!
The back part of the restaurant was sectioned off for the event with a few standing only tables scattered about. Two seafood platter towers were waiting to be devoured — overflowing with lobster, snow crab, oysters mussels, clams and peel & eat shrimp. YUM! Their famous wonton crusted tempura prawns, calamari and chicken spring rolls were in heavy rotation being served by their friendly staff.
Everything was delicious — it was a bit difficult to eat lobster standing up though. (I’m sure if you’re at Catch for a meal, you’ll be sitting down!)
It was starting to get busy (from people joining the event plus people dining in the main part of the restaurant) that it was getting profusely hot. We ended up leaving earlier than we wanted — but we had to cool off outside (and head to our next after conference party).
I will definitely be back for a proper sit down meal, there’s a lot of things I wanna try off the menu — and with all the positive reviews they have I’m sure I won’t be disappointed!

Lunch downtown can be a challenge some days especially when you have to change your reservations last minute to another venue. We chose Catch (upstairs) because it was the only place that had availability for the time and size that we needed.
None of us have been there before and to be honest we all were kind of apprehensive of what it would be like but it turned out to be quite a good experience.
As we trekked up the stairs to the restaurant I was impressed at what I saw. Bright red booths lined one side of the restaurant and tables filled the rest. It looked welcoming and fancy which I am sure is what they are going for.
Once we sat down we were handed an iPad with the wine list, I thought this was pretty cool. One of my coworkers noticed that the beer selection was lacking however.
After giving the lunch menu a good look (there isn’t that many items to choose from compared to the menu in the oyster bar downstairs) I ordered the beet salad to start. It came out looking like a piece of art and was just the right amount for a starter… it was also super tasty.
For my main lunch item I ordered the Shrimp Salad Sandwich it was very light and full of flavour. The only thing I didn’t like was the bread it was on. I found it to be very hard and crunchy, so much so that the baby shrimp filling just fell out, but let me tell you this… I am still thinking about how good this sandwich tasted!
I want to defiantly come back and try more things on the menu, perhaps for dinner!