The Madfish Grille

Staff was great, very clean and the most delicious seafood, and the view is beautiful I will be back

Stupendously bad service, fried only menu. Nice location… used to be an awesome spot on a sunny afternoon, I won’t hurry back.

Woof. This place has so much potential, but it falls very flat. I would recommend going here for drinks only, NOT for food. It’s one thing to have inexpensive eats — I wasn’t expecting a gourmet meal by any stretch of the imagination — it’s another to have bad food and bad service. I understand this is their «soft opening,» but it still doesn’t explain our poor experience.
Our order of fried calamari was the smallest portion I’ve ever seen. It was rubbery and rather tasteless. Then there was the clam chowder, which, wait for it, apparently had strips of chicken or some other kind of mystery meat in it. Gross. The lettuce salad was wilted and disgusting.
Add the bad service onto that — forgetting to provide a spoon, forgetting the salad dressing, forgetting the right kind of sauce we asked for… Sigh.
You are much better off going to The Studio, where for mere dollars more, you will have exceptionally better food, atmosphere and service.
Madfish: get your act together! You can serve cheap eats, just do it well.

Came to this place because everyone recommended it. I wasnt incredibly impressed. The food was okay, nothing special. I had a beet salad, small and not many beets! My boyfriend loves the chowder they have.
I have been here twice, once to eat, once to drink.
When we came to eat the credit card machine was down, they ran our card multiple times, we had to call to have them refund it. They told us to use their ATM machine so we can pay the bill… well their ATM machine charges $ 5…so you want us to pay $ 5 more dollars so we can pay you. When we complained about that they said they would take $ 5 off our bill. So we went to the ATM and the ATM ran out of money. Luckily it gave us exactly what our bill was.
The second time we came here to the last reggae night of the season I had a great time! Drinks were cheap, music was awesome and it was a great crowd!
The bartender was speedy and always was happy to help!

Guys– I want to love you so bad!!! Love the staff, location, atmosphere, vibe…
Every time I go it’s something else. This last time, we placed an order for raw & entrees. Entrees came right out, so we cancelled the raw…
When the *new* Studio is open, you might be in trouble…

SO, We arrived at the restaurant to hear that they had a wedding over the weekend and they were out of all their Chardonnay… but that’s not ALL!
I have been here twice since I arrived here for the month of August. The first time was last week when I visited with my sister-​in-​law and mother-​in-​law. The service was terrible, had to wait for over 45 minutes for bread. The food was pretty good and the dessert was incredible. I must admit that they were out of many specials, appetizers and desserts.
So, when my daughter wanted to come here for my brother’s birthday; I thought, why not? Well, Amazing Grace… our waitress, NOT! We started off on the wrong foot, we ordered appetizers, the oysters were good… the mussels… we counted 20 out of 40 empty shells. She said sorry, I said bring us another appetizer, on the house. We then sat there for over an hour … with all our empty dishes and glasses in front of us… we cleaned the table ourselves… just moved it to a table behind us.
Then, we ordered our meals… the 3 specials ordered were not available. We ordered others… one came, was not what we ordered but we were tired at this point… then we had to wait for the other 3 entrees… Seafood Rissoto… pretty sure it was rice with shrimp (not RISOTTO)!!! The shrimp scampi… YUCK! Oh, and there was the SUSHI CHEF throwing stuff around!!! Classy place, not!
Dessert, they had NONE! and it was a birthday celebration! I had called in advance to make sure they would have a birthday cake! They didn’t even offer dessert!
Do yourself a favor… stay away… go to the RUDDER!
DEFINITELY NOT WORTH YOUR TIME or EFFORT! AND TOO EXPENSIVE!!! ESPECIALLY FOR WHAT YOU GET!

Terrible overall experience.
The service was just awful. I can understand that seasonal help in a tourist area may not provide the best wait staff available, but they shouldn’t be the worst either. A manager should be overseeing the operation and checking on its clients.
Waitress brought three glasses of water for four people, then waited forever to take our order. We were so anxious at this point to get our order in that we forgot to order drinks. She never asked and we had to track her down to order drinks.
The food was actually pretty good, not great but good. We started with a Sushi roll for an app, then for entrees we ordered the bouillabaisse, scallops w goat cheese polenta, and the seafood risotto, and my youngest ordered the grilled cheese. Smallish portions but acceptable.
After two of the four meals came, the «food runner» strangely asked is there anything else I can get you, we politely said no as we assumed that the other two meals were only obvious. After ten minutes my wife got up, went out the back door, and tracked down the waitress smoking with her boyfriend and ask her to go and get our other meals.
Never did the waitress come by to check and see if we wanted more drinks, which we did, or if we needed anything else. We shared our three waters and after a 90 minute total experience got our check and were glad to leave. The sad part is that had the service been acceptable, not great but acceptable, it would have contributed to a great night out as a family instead of a belabored point of discussion.
I will add that this was on a Wednesday night with only three or four tables occupied and three waitress. Not a busy night and no excuse for such terrible service. I sincerely hope the owner and manger reads these reviews.

I have been here twice. I just drove 45 minutes from Arlington… it is THAT good. Sang, the head sushi chef joined from Oishi and has put together an incredible menu. The Pesto Salmon, the Glousta, the Mango salad, the hot rock Salmon or Tuna Belly are all incredible works of art.
I am just some guy that stumbled across this place after the beach one day with his daughter. And now I am a believer… I bring others to experience it. Amazing.

Where to begin about our painful experience at the Mad Fish. My brother and his wife were visiting from out of town and we were going out for a birthday celebration so we chose to come here because of the beautiful location. We had called ahead for a reservation as we were a party of 10 but upon arrival they had no record of our reservation and so the very disgruntaled waiter seated us as a table with wrinkled table cloths and left us sitting there with no greeting, place settings, menus, water… absolutely nothing for a good 20 minutes… no one came over to us or for that matter even made eye contact and it went downhill from there. We probably should have just walked out but that’s not so easy with such a large group and so we waited.
Our inept waiter was absolutely horrible lacking in any personality or skill in waiting on tables. We asked for a drink menu and you guessed it there was none, and we must have repeated our order for him 3 times… who knows what he was writing down but not what we were ordering that’s for sure.
Took FOREVER for the drinks to come out and the place was not busy AT ALL.
We asked for some bread to munch on while we were waiting. and he informed us there was none. The chef’s refuse to make it cause it’s too hot out.
He never asked if we wanted any apps we had to suggest that we would like to order some before ordering our meal but of course when we did order they were out of the kind of oysters we wanted and they didn’t even have enough of the others kind. The calamari was awful… too much breading and over cooked.
Oh and by the way we had to ask him to bring us some plates and place settings… they never came… guess he forgot to write it down so I went over to the waiter station and got them for our table.
Before ordering our meals we ordered another round of drinks which never came till the end of the meal and that is only because we had to keep asking where they were.
Most of the table ordered the «catch of the day» (frankly I am surprised the waiter even knew they had one). I guess it was OK I had something else but the portions were very small and it was very expensive. One member of our party had a hair in her’s and they offered to buy her a glass of wine… nice, thanks alot for nothing.
Upon receiving our bill my brother was informed they do not take American Express just a heads up folks so you know and I am pretty sure I never heard the words thank you come out of the waiter’s mouth.
We tried hard to make the best of it as we were suppose to be celebrating my kid’s birthday but the whole experience really put a damper on the evening. We could not stop talking about how bad everything was.
Frankly it was the worst service I have EVER had. Sometimes a place will start with bad service and then it gets a little better… not here it just kept going downhill.
I would not even give this place 1 star but I had to check something but I can tell you we will not be going back or telling anyone to ever go there.
I wish we had gone to the Rudder next door. It was packed and looked much more inviting and also they had plenty of wait staff to serve their customers.
This was a most disappointing and very expensive experience!

Came here with a large group of 13 one night about a month ago. They apparently had another party of 11 that night and the first issue was when they sat us at the table for 11 and insisted it was the correct table even when we asked about the table set for 13. So we sat crowded at that table while the party of 11 had extra seats.
It took a while for our drinks order to be taken and when the girl taking the order was asked about beer on tap, she replied she had no idea and didn’t bother to find out. We never did find out from any of the other wait staff either.
We did eventually order drinks and food and here are a few of the highlights
— had to ask 3 times for miso soup appetizer
— waitress explained that the brownish color of the lobster roll was normal
— fried calamari was undercooked though the waiter insisted it was
— the linguini and clams arrived with one clam
–weren’t even asked about more drinks or dessert, were just presented with the check with gratuity already included
Needless to say it was an awful experience with terrible service and mediocre food. None of the 13 of us will be coming back which is a shame as the location is beautiful on the water.

I really like madfish.
I have been there a couple times and will definitely be back.
The sushi is fresh and they have some very good special sushi plates.
I have tried several of there entrees. I loved the fresh tuna. The striper was great. By friend got the fish taco which could have used a bit more flavor but was good.
I also recommend the rum punch!

Came here after a show at Gloucester Stage. We loved this place when it first opened, but then had a couple of bad experiences and didn’t return for a while. We won’t be returning again.
Positive:
The place has a BEAUTIFUL view. You can’t beat the view. It’s also on Rocky Neck, which has lots of cool art galleries. The décor is nice. My husband’s sushi and pasta with clams dish were actually quite good.
Negative:
We were seated in the dining room. My beer came in a small plastic cup. Weird, since wine and cocktails seem to come in real glasses. If I wanted to drink beer from a plastic cup, I’d go to a backyard bbq, not a nice restaurant. And for the price of the beer, I expect a pint. In addition, the beer we ordered was either not the beer we got or they have a serious problem with their tap lines.
Two of us ordered fried seafood — haddock and calamari. The haddock was passable but appeared to be from a frozen fillet, which is crazy in a town known for seafood and where there are a bunch of places to buy fresh fish. My calamari was HORRIBLE. It was very mushy and had no flavor. It was battered in a very thick batter. I couldn’t eat it. When the waiter asked how everything was, I told him. He didn’t apologize or really say anything and promptly completely disappeared for nearly 30 minutes until we finally managed to flag him down to get our check.
My husband’s pasta was good, but it was very pricey for what it was.
The waiter was too busy avoiding us to see if we wanted a second drink or dessert, although at that point we certainly did not.
The hostess also seemed very confused. It took a little while for her to acknowledge us, and then when she did she told us it would be 5 minutes, if we wanted to go away and come back. We went to the bathroom and came back, she told us it would be 10 minutes and then seated us immediately. I mentioned to her that the ladies room was nearly out of toliet paper, and she seemed completely annoyed that I would tell her that. Not sure who I was supposed to tell, although I do think the bathrooms might be common to the restaurant and galleries in the area and not just «theirs».
Anyway, there are many far better restaurants in Gloucester, both for fine dining and casual seafood, so we won’t be coming back here. The view is nice, but that’s not enough. One star for the view, one star for the food that was okay. Minus 3 for the food that wasn’t okay, the lack of glassware, the weird vibe from the staff and the sticky table.

This review is for lunch.
Warm oysters, bad service. Not the server’s fault, she was only on the floor that day.
Sushi was great
Miso Soup was great
Fish Sandwich was great
Tartar sauce was too much mayo, need to add pickles, onions etc for a good homemade tartar.
Won’t be back. The décor is rustic but in a depressing vs quirky.

Clam chowder reminded me of my childhood eating that paste glue that supposed to be used for art projects.
Fish and chips at $ 18 were ok, but very small portion. This is not Idaho people! Seafood is plentiful here!
Better for drinking and listening to music. Food is overpriced and mediocre at best.
Stear clear for food — go to Expresso’s down the street for a much better meal at a reasonable price.
I am new to Gloucester, but had to learn the hard way about this place!

Madfish is a great spot for a fresh seafood meal with one of the best harbor views the North Shore has to offer. I’ve been here 3 times, twice to eat and once for drinks — all three visits have been enjoyable. The only complaint would be the service, which rushed us a little during my most recent visit and are otherwise kind of unattentive.
Madfish has a very relaxed feel, reggae music always playing with live reggae on Saturday nights along with Red Stripe specials. The place is located in Rocky Neck, a «hidden» gem of Gloucester being a tiny art colony with a good amount of places to eat/​drink. Madfish is right on the water, the deck literally hangs over docked boats below. When sitting on the deck you’ll see that quite a few people pull up & dock, walk in for a drink and a bite to eat and head back out via boat, which is cool to watch as you enjoy your meal.
The menu here isn’t huge, but offers a good assortment of seafood (both prepared dishes & fried platters), salads, sushi and a few non-​seafood entrees. It had been 3 years since I was last at Madfish and I noticed they installed a sushi bar which hadn’t been there before. I saw lots of sushi going out to tables so I would venture to say it was good — not to mention probably some of the freshest fish you’ve ever had, with being in Gloucester.
Decent draft beer selection.
Stop in and check this place out the next time you’re on Cape Ann, I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Maybe it’s a good nightclub, but as a restaurant, not so much. I ordered the «Pork and Lobster dumplings» which in actuality, was an order of six, standard, stir-​fried, pork dumplings with a cooked lobster tail thrown on top of it. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t as described either.
But the location is pretty nice, so I gave it 2 stars instead of 1.

I have been on Unilocal for 5 years and this spot inspired me to write my first review as it put a huge damper on an otherwise lovely daycation in Gloucester this past Saturday.
My friend and I (in our 30s) and her mother and mother’s pal (in their 60s) popped over to see our friends’ band (my boyfriend was playing and I am a fan of the Gloucester locals who split that bill with our pals). We proceeded to watch a little basketball before taking a walk before the music started. Upon reentering the bar, the bouncer was standing this time with someone I’d determine was a manager and we were recarded. No biggie, yet it felt awkward how long he spent with our IDs.
Back in and watching the game, yet to have ordered a drink, my friend and I were talking about how awkwardly long the ID check had been when she noticed that the bouncer and manager were in the process of really surveying the club and staring at us. Just then, the bouncer came over and stated that he had to ask to look at my ID again. No problem (we’re both under five feet tall; perhaps we looked like children), handed him my Massachusetts license. He then asked for back up, and I handed him the first thing in my wallet– my credit card. I then had to give him my MGH card that included my birthdate. He then said «don’t you have another form of photo-​ID?» Not being a student, or employed in a hospital, I then gave him my health insurance card. I felt far from being flattered by somehow appearing over a decade younger than I am, and much more being arbitrarily harassed.
For the rest of the evening, I felt like I was doing something wrong as the manager stared at me, kinda followed me as I was doing anything. I wanted to grab something from my boyfriend’s van out front but truly feared I wouldn’t be allowed back in. My friend who was the drummer’s wife ordered clam chowder when she arrived, it didn’t come for over an hour so she cancelled her soup order and requested a different meal. It likewise didn’t come. At the end of the night as the band was breaking down, we were ushered out because we weren’t in the band. I had to carry his guitar to the car and wait there in the dark for twenty minutes because I was no longer physically allowed to be in there.
I can’t say why the staff seemed specifically hostile to me, with the only guesses being disdain toward out-​of-​towners or bigotry. I tipped on every plastic cup filled with water I ordered, two bucks on a cocktail, and a dollar for each corona my friends had. This review seems long for essentially «I got intensely carded more than once and felt unwelcome,» but it takes a few paragraphs to begin to express how uncomfortable I was for the entire evening. My friends and I have been in the customer service/​food/​bar industry our entire adult lives and have not experienced that low level of service from a popular venue. I will never go back.

Really disappointing experience in an otherwise perfect trip!
We looked at Unilocal for the rate and imagined it would not be great… but expected decent service. We were wrong.
The restaurant is kind of nicely decorated and has a good view, but service is terrible as you will notice soon enough.
We had crab cakes for appetizers which were… regular.
For the meal, my wife had the arugula and calamari salad which was terrible!!! No taste at all!!! She could not eat it and we burned some money on it.
As far as my plate, the waiter told me that there was a special of grilled sea bass with any salad on the menu for 12 dollars. The food was regular (great compared to my wife’s), but they charged me for the salad separately. Wen I asked him he told me that was the way… whatever, we just wanted to get out of there.
Waiter did not pay attention to costumers at all.

SUSHI BAR REVIEW ONLY
The sushi bar is awesome.
The roasted shishito peppers, amazing… tip – the bigger, the spicier.
Seaweed salad with cukes, my favorite!
spicy crunchy YUMMY… got it with Avocado instead of fish and I was so happy.
The sushi chef dude is really nice and rad too. We chatted and promised to bring back «The Rocky Neck» which is a nice vegetarian roll with tofu and whatnot.
The Philly roll looked cool too… an interesting spin on it with smoked cream cheese and «everything bagel spice»!!!
Only problem… connection from sushi bar to FOH. Somehow they don’t have a computer so if you want anything other than sushi related stuff, they are flagging down a waitress for you. Madfish management, GET ON IT!!!

After having dinner at a neighboring restaurant, my crew and I stopped here to check this place out. The waterfront dining room which overlooks Smith Cove is fully enclosed as well as the long cocktail bar and a dance floor for live entertainment. The walls have colorful fish décor. The menu here is mainly seafood dishes. We sat at the bar and ordered a bunch of different items.
The «Young Dude» had two Tanquerey & Tonics and a bowl of New England Clam Chowder ($ 6). The drinks were different each time; the lady bartender mixed it strong, while the guy bartender mixed it weaker. The Chowder had potatoes, clams, bacon in a watery broth, bland tasting.
Me and «Old Timer» shared desserts and coffee. The coffee was okay, hot the first round, but the refills were cold. The Crème Brulee had a creamy chalky texture served with real whipped cream and fresh strawberries, pretty good. The Raspberry Sorbet (4 scoops) was on the creamy side, but otherwise refreshingly good. The service at the bar was decent.
Based on this visit, the consensus was this place gets 3 STARS. We didn’t try the core menu of seafood dishes which sounded very appetizing. Check out the menu at:
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PARKING: Limited onsite parking on north side of the restaurant & shops.