Triangle Seafood Market

I came in for lunce on a Tuesday. The restaurant has a serious identity crisis. For a «seafood» restaurant, most of the items are Italian and American sandwiches. I had the catfish special. It was overly salty. The service was superb and the décor is elegant. The food needs to rise to the same level.

Visited here with my family 1÷30÷16. Service was slow and all food subpar. Do not order the seafood chowder as it was lukewarm, had no taste and the texture was gummy. I would have sent back but did not want to embarrass a family member who had suggested this place. The po boys were bland and even the bloody Mary’s were sad. A beautifully renovated building deserves better cuisine.

We wanted seafood, and despite the bad reviews on Unilocal,we made our way to this beautiful spot in Brightleaf. The menu is perplexing; we live in North Carolina with an abundance of amazing seafood varieties right off our coast… but the chef decides to offer nothing endemic like flounder or snapper, but instead insists on trolling in the cliché imports (salmon, halibut, and monkfish), but more on that later. The other reviews don’t lie, the service is bad. I wanted to order the halibut, but when I asked to substitute the kale for the spinach I was told no. Just no. The server said, and I quote… «our chef is high maintenance». Server then came back and said they were out of halibut, and out of the grouper they replaced the halibut with, and were now featuring mahi mahi. Wait, what? So I swapped to order the monkfish. Appetizers for our party of 4 were served at three separate times, and were underwheliming. Peruvian ceviche was chopped seafood and corn smothered in bottled hot sauce. Fried oysters were good, and tuna carpaccio was just seared tuna but also not bad. On to entrées… we ordered entrées at 8:15. They arrived at 9:20, and they were cold. Shrimp and grits had the most flavor, but literally had unattached tails floating everywhere. The salmon entrée included the restaurant week menu had portions I would serve my 2 year old. But the worst was my monkfish. Stone cold chunks of hard rubbery fish atop dense inedible gnocchi. The manager saw my face and immediately came to address our concern over the timing, service, and food. He really listened to our feedback and I can tell he cares, and is focused on making this place a success. If he can drive the changes he wants to make, I hope he can turn this ship around. We need a thriving seafood joint in Brightleaf again!

I’ve been wanted to try this place since it opened and when they were added to Triangle Restaurant Week, I decided it was the perfect time. Overall, we were very underwhelmed with our experience. Although the restaurant was nearly empty, the service was SO slow. We were there for over two hours. The restaurant is a really nice space, with a bar, huge dining area, private dining room, and a large (but somewhat empty) area for the market. Although I was not thrilled about my experience at the restaurant, I would buy seafood at the market.
For the first course, three of us ordered the grilled romaine salad and one ordered the seafood chowder. The salad was okay, but the chowder was the best thing of the night. It was broth-​based, flavorful, and filled with seafood. For the main course, we ordered the salmon dish and shrimp and grits. The salmon was sauteed to get a crispy crust, but it was too oiled and cooked more than I would’ve liked. The shrimp and grits were again average. One of the dessert options was doughnuts, and the waitress insisted there was no cream filling even though we could see it on other people’s plates. We all ordered the deconstructed tiramisu and it was fun to eat but again nothing special. Note that I think all of these items were on the regular menu and added up to roughly $ 30, so you’re not getting a great deal for restaurant week.

Don’t be misled — this is not a seafood restaurant — it’s a rebadge of the failed Italian restaurant that previously operated there. We went with a group of 5 diners on a Wednesday night & the restaurant was virtually empty at 7pm. Here’s the unacceptable issues that we encountered:
1 had to wait 10 minutes (with nobody in line of course) to be acknowledged with a very mediocre insincere greeting and shown to our table
2 very very long wait before food was delivered after ordering
3 very ordinary food at very inflated prices, eg a crab cake (yes 1 very small crab cake appetizer) for $ 15
4 I ordered the Fritto Misto appetizer for $ 16 — don’t. It says lightly fried and mine was very oily and it was served with too many fresh herbs (see photo) — it was like eating your meal with wire or string throughout it. You constantly had to keep pulling these things out of your teeth
5 Very limited supply of wine — running out of wine selection after 1 bottle in mid week isn’t what I expect from a we’ll run restaurant
6 The side dishes we ordered were awful and overpriced again. The jalapeño corn fritters were confirmed by our server as having no jalapeño in them. The wilted kale was so tough that nobody could eat it
7 or a supposed fish restaurant there was very little fish menu options available
On the plus side — our server was very good and was clearly embarrassed by the experience that we had and said she was providing feedback to the chef & manager. But if they took our feedback seriously you thought one of them would have come out to discuss with us.
So in summary my strong advice is steer clear of this restaurant — it is most certainly NOT a fine dining fish restaurant, OK for Italian only in my opinion, but very over priced, especially the appetizers.

We came in on a Wednesday night, and were the only people in the restaurant. I ordered the mussels, and my girlfriend ordered a seafood pasta dish. The mussels were overcooked, and lacking taste – especially at that price point. Her pasta dish also tasted under seasoned, and had very little seafood in it.
I’m honestly only gave it two stars for the service, which was polite and fast. With Fishmongers across the street closing down, I was excited to see a new seafood place opening up. This was quite the disappointment.

We have been to the market (not the restaurant) twice since it opened.
Everything is fresh & reasonable prices.
Supper tonight was mussels & lobster — fantastic! Every mussel in the batch opened & they were nice sized & flavorful.
So glad to finally have a seafood market in town (and so conveniently located to Rose’s making surf-​n-​turf evenings a very simple shopping trip!)

Very disappointed. Honestly only gave it two stars because I felt bad. We started with the Seared Tuna carpaccio. There was nothing carpaccio about this tuna. It was tough, too cooked and the sauce really had no flavor. I got the crab cake and seafood chowder for dinner. The crab cake for 9 dollars was about the size of a quarter and had 90% breading 10% crab. The chowder was also a let down. It really should be called seafood soup (even though there was very little seafood in it). My wife got the red snapper and risotto. The presentation was very good but that’s about where the good ended. The fish was tough and very bland. The risotto was also bland. On top of it all very expensive for what you got. Very disappointed and won’t come back for sure.

We were in Durham for the night and decided to try Triangle for dinner. I wish I could say that I loved the experience, but I think the restaurant is still having some new restaurant pains and needs some time to clean things up a bit. (It had only been only a few weeks when we stopped in.)
Everyone that greeted us was extremely nice and friendly. They went out of their way to explain the concept of the restaurant and make sure that we had a nice time.
My boyfriend had the gnocchi with the Gorgonzola sauce, which he actually loved and said he would get again.
I had the grilled romaine salad, which was pretty disappointing. While I love grilled romaine and Parmesan cheese, the romaine wasn’t grilled properly and was still quite raw at the center but charred at the edges and side that had touched the grill. In addition, the Caesar salad dressing tasted like it was straight out of the bottle — much too thick and mayo-​tasting — and there was far too much of it.
I also had the seared tuna, which was okay. I love seared tuna, but I thought that the cut I received had quite a bit of sinew in it and that the spicy mayo and tomatoes it came with didn’t quite make sense together.
The restaurant is quite striking — with exposed interior brick and poured cement floors. And the wine and cocktail menu looked great (we stuck with water).
The owner or manager who spent quite a bit of time at our table explained that the market side of the building is soon to open and that they’ll sell fresh fish and fresh pasta prepared in the restaurant (including the gnocchi my boyfriend liked so much).
The concept of the restaurant is great, and I’m hopeful that as the restaurant gets a little more time under its belt, the kinks in the kitchen will get worked out. The experience was great, but the food needs a bit of improvement. And the market sounds really exciting! Wish the managers and staff well — it really was a great experience, even if I wasn’t crazy about my dishes!