Blackfin Bistro

I have visited this joint twice to eat, both times service was great! Did sit at the bar to eat dinner which was great! Bartender there is on the spot with wine recommendations — place has superb fresh fish for dinner!

Everything about Blackfin was a pleasant surprise. The atmosphere, service, appetizer and entrée suggestions were excellent. And the bill, including wine, was less than any dinner we had in Key West.
If you’re seeking a nice meal away from the loud hawking, cross-​street musical battles and general overcrowding on the rest of Duval, this is your place.
If you want to try conch fritters, hogfish, grouper or any other seafood without the batter, breadcrumbs, hushpuppy goop and stale oil, this is SO your place!
If you want really well thought out wine to pair with your food, this is your place.

Great place! Great service! Gooper, conch cakes and a mixed green salad do the trick for two. Entrees are American sized.

We went there for lunch last Sunday & it was just incredible!!! The service was simply amazing, professional & fun!!! The food was fresh & exciting! We had the mussels, conch cakes & escargots (all to die for). & the Nicoise tuna salad is impeccable. The Tira mi su & espresso are on par, or better, than the best restaurants we’ve dined before. This is a place that we are craving to go back to again!!! Not to be missed if you are in key west!!!

Amazing meal. Best of the entire trip. My boyfriend and I were in desperate need of escaping the frozen to fried, overpriced, slop of the restaurants, many highly rated, in Key West.
This place is a gem. Great wine list! Conch cakes that weren’t just balls of dough but fresh and tender. Had to ask if we had gotten crab cakes because they were so perfectly soft and delicious it was opposite of what we had tried the days before.
We had grouper and hog fish. Both prepared perfectly. Fresh, lightly sauced. Just melted in our mouth.
The service was outstanding! The ambiance upscale.
This meal cost us less then any we had in Key West yet it was by far the freshest and most delicious.
Skip the lower end of Duval street and head here! You won’t be disappointed!

I went to a seafood restaurant and ended up having the best burger of my life. The combination of wagyu beef, smoked Gouda, and port wine mayo on a brioche bun was orgasmic. The service was great as well — the host and the waitress were both very attentive. Overall it made for a great dining experience in the Keys.

Amazing sandwich and great service. I would highly recommend this restaurant. High quality food. I got the veggie burger and my boyfriend got the regular burger.

I had a burger and fries while I was here. The staff was friendly.
The ambience was nice — quaint. Each meal came with a little bit of a green salad.
We all got dessert as well. Everyone seemed to be satisfied. I had the carrot cake. It was yummy. No complaints.

We had a 7pm reservation. Not really necessary, when we arrived the restaurant was mostly empty. We chose to sit in the back patio area –which was very nice.
They have various bottles of craft beer and wine by the bottle.
We ordered the tuna tartar appetizer special, the hogfish special and Mahi with black beans and asparagus. Everything was delicious and portion sizes left us «happy full»
The food was great, service was fine. Prices were a little high, but to be expected while in Key West.
Would return when we visit next :)

Outstanding bistro on Duval… we enjoyed dinner at the bar due to the crowd that evening… no problem… we were treated just as nice as if we were at a table by the very professional bartender (more on that later)…Escargot appetizer and a shared Kobi Burger… FANTASTIC! Burger cooked to perfection and reasonably priced ($ 22)…We asked for a wine suggestion and the bartender took to time to explain his offerings with special attention to the price claiming that ‘the more premium wines commanded a more top end price’…very nice of him and very professional… I hate it when I’m surprised with a bill for over priced anything and this was NOT the case!
Will return and recommend this place over and over… a pleasure to have made your aquaintance Blackfin!

Not cheap, but the ambiance and food were great so it was a good experience. My wife had snails and I had mussels to start — both dishes were nicely prepared and presented. Then swordfish and mahi mahi for entrees. Both did not disappoint. The servers were attentive… sort of. We seemed to have three servers who rather lost the plot — all three statusing us one minute and then all three ignoring us for periods.
Skipped wine and just had a couple of beers (decent bottled selection available) — $ 112 before tip. Very enjoyable overall.

Nice price and place, the food looks pretty and taste good~ recommend. They have hamburger and seafood. Pretty place and have lots wine. In additionally, they have a back yard which allow more ppl.

My darling Chamo took me here on our first night of our adventurous Key West weekend in late Jan. Located right on Duval Street it is an awesome place to get your night started with some delicious food before you head further down Duval for some drunken debauchery! My babe planned this out smartly with dinner reservations and all to make the most of Key West evenings as this would be my first time.
Once you step inside the restaurant it is beautifully intimate with a bar and few tables. I must impose on you to go through the back and get a table on the back patio! Especially if the weather is right — but c’mon it’s Key West. the weather is always on point. It is also nicely intimate without being over crowded and well spaced.
It was a perfect setting for a romantic dinner setting. Dimly lit and they had heating lamps because the weather was in the 60s (cold for Floridians like me!). Perfectly toasty, perfectly weather to wine n’ dine and perfect company. Couldn’t ask for a better dinner honestly.
The service? Impeccable. Truly a high class restaurant without the stuffy, stuck up ambiance and without putting a huge dent in your wallet. Definitely recommend this place for dinner to any and all.
I decided on the Shrimp Provencal (infamous Key West pink shrimp with mash potatoes and sauteed spinach) DELICIOUS. My boyfriend had the Carbonara which he enjoyed except for the extra amount of Peas but still enjoyed nonetheless.
If you stopped by to read reviews on where to dine, this is the place to go. Trust me.

We had a nice meal here for dinner last night. We booked in at 6pm because we had a dessert reservation nearby at 7.30pm.
When we arrived it was pretty much empty so we got our choice of seats. It quickly filled up, by the time we were leaving the place was pumping.
Our waiter and trainee were very nice and attentive, he pretty much did all the talking, we later found out it was her first night, she’d only moved here a week ago.
We got a bottle of wine from the fancy expensive wine list, turns out the cheapest one of the Reds was one we’d like ($ 33) but when it came it was freezing cold do we had to wait a while for it to warm up.
I got the lobster bisque special to start and he got the lobster rolls. They came out really quickly! His rolls were really yummy and my bisque was nice, but just nice. Nothing special.
For mains, he got the hogfish special and I got the grouper. They were both nice meals, I think the best part of mine was the 4 pieces of asparagus. The couscous started to go mushy after the fish had sat on it for a while. The sauce on my hubbys dish was fantastic!
One thing we didn’t like and didn’t think to ask, was the prices of the specials. He didn’t tell us when he described them but they sounded so good you just didn’t notice. My soup was $ 9 and his hogfish was $ 37. When we got the bill it was over $ 130 before gratuity.
It sux that a nice meal was so overpriced but i guess that’s what you get for seafood in key west.

I had the WORST dining experience at this restaurant… and I really do mean WORST.
A) Service was undeniably SLOW— it look a VERY long time to get our menu and took our server an even longer time to take our order, and receive our meal.
B) I can’t even remember what I ordered anymore, but I remember it being so bad and expensive– our waitress came by and asked how our meal was and when I told her I didn’t like the food, she said «I’m sorry» then walked away before I can utter another word– it was getting late, and I didn’t want to order something else because they were closing, so shared a meal with my husband instead without taking another bite at my food (which I’ve placed to the side and clearly did not eat from anymore since she walked away).
C) When we got our bill, she charged us for the meal and said «You should have told me earlier that you didn’t like your food, I could have gotten you something else, but you didn’t say anything when I asked you», we both insisted that «we did, but you walked away from us» and asked to speak with the manager because she just stood there and kept arguing with us about it.
D) The manager that evening came out, then said that WE were being rude to the waitress and made it seem like he was doing us a favor by adjusting our bill– he gave us a 10 or 15% discount instead of taking the meal off our bill– I have never felt so disrespected as a customer until that evening. I have never seen such classless service from both server and manager and DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE GOING HERE. If you’re looking for good food and good service, you’re better off going to Mallory Square and getting tacos and ceviche.

came in about 8PM on a Monday night, and they were out of almost everything. The staff was quite flustered and we were told we had to wait 15 – 20 minutes to place our order, as the kitchen was overwhelmed. they weren’t even completely full… From there, the experience settled down, and we had a nice meal. the bar tender /​server was doing his best to be accommodating and treated us to a nice round of after dinner cuvee.
Overall, the food was pretty good… the main courses of Snapper and Grouper were oversalted.

On NYE, we decided to be risky and not make a reservation… aka someone made me cancel my reservations so we could just relax. This actually planned to work out well, since we had a wide range of options to eat from. We walked into Blackfin, and were able to be seated right away.
From the outside, it has some sort of charm and elegance that seems to be lost on the rest of Duval. You still get the vibe that you are in the south, but you just know that your experience here is going to be phenomenal. The delicacy of the sign, and the simplicity of thee white clay building just really makes it stand out. The atmosphere inside has even more charm than the outside, with amazing art of Cuba, and the historic Cuban cars all throughout. The inside also has sporadic maps, and windows, that allow you to view different angles of Duval, or into different parts of the restaurant. The best part? Is the back patio. It is a large patio with probably one of the top 5 bars I have ever seen in my life. It is just a simple, light blue painted bar, but is so intimate, so exotic, that it just makes you feel like this place is magical. The entire place is romantic, intimate, and simple.
The bread was a 5/​5, and our food was a ⁵⁄₅. The pasta was homemade, fresh, and one of the best I have ever had… 5/​5, 10/​10, whatever your scale, it is the maximum. Gster got the bolognease, and I got the pasta in the cream sauce. I was officially initiated into the clean plate club.
My favorite part of the night? When I heard the wine special was a cab, I ordered it (w/​out asking the price). Gster’s face was in awe, as he tried to scare me into thinking it was a $ 40 glass of wine. It was NYE… we were celebrating! Thankfully, it only ended up being $ 18.
Not only is this one of my favorite experiences/​restaurants of key west, but of … ever. It is a transportation to an exotic and relaxing experience, for all of your senses.

We were a party of 6, everyone was content with their meal.
Husband ordered a fish burger and said it was the best burger he has ever had.
Portions of the pastas were ok, I had the primavera and it had a good ratio of pasta/​veggies.
Two other people in my party ordered the seafood pasta, and really enjoyed it.
The place is very small, and often times, the waiter had to work over people’s heads to attend to corner table. I also disliked the entry point, door opens inward, and there is a podium right when you walk in, awkwardly placed when larger parties are walking in.
Most of the staff was friendly, gentleman at check in podium, even gave my daughter a rose on her way out— nice touch.
I did feel a bit rushed through the beginning of meal, I am assuming it’s because place is small, and they depend on quicker turnover.
No children’s menu, which is no big deal to me, considering my daughter eats everything, so I shared my meal with her, but for picky eaters, this place would not have worked.
I kept two stars, as there was a switch around of waiters during our dinner, no actual connection with any, felt a bit rushed, and seating was tight between parties.

I’m not sure I can really do this place justice!
Nestled on far side of Duval in the strictly Artsy Gay District, is the innocuous Blackfin Bistro. It’s Unilocal rating is just ok, and the outside is definitely modest – almost European and no nonsense. We glanced over the posted menu and felt it speak to us. With a moment’s hesitation (it was late, and soon we would have a hard time getting a table to seat us) we slipped inside. We were seated immediately at a very pleasant corner table. Ambiance, candlelight and music from the Transiberian Orchestra circled around us.
I ordered a glass of rose that was on special and on point, pleasantly enough. It was floral and forward, with a long fruity finish. I only remember that it was from Bourgogne. I impulse ordered the goat cheese croquettes. After they arrived, my BFF and I both suffered from delirious palpitations. They were beyond food. They were art for your mouth.
Our entrees also sparkled. My pal ordered the carbonara and picked around the peas (so, warning, it comes in that style). I snuck a bite it was delicious – you could really taste the egg, which I adored. I ordered another special – the hogfish, which came with a (brace yourself) pineapple coconut milk reduction, asparagus and… rice? It was magical.
Go here for a romantic dinner or just to please refined palates. The service was excellent, the food stellar, with a beautiful atmosphere.
Anytime I return to Key West, to will be dining at the Blackfin Bistro.

Restaurant absolument Excellent!
Bel endroit, cuisine de qualité avec des aliments cuisinés de façon magique ! La soupe de bisque de homard était excellente! Les pâtes du chefs sont également à goûter !! Un endroit à découvrir durant un passage à Key West!
Accueil et service de qualité, belle carte des vins. Nous n’avons pas pu nous rendre jusqu’au dessert… car déjà plus faim après le plat principal !
C’est un endroit chaleureux, et agréable autant en couple qu’en groupe. Le prix est tout à fait convenable pour un restaurant de cette qualité et pour un restaurant de fruit de mer et poisson. À découvrir !!

Type: Eclectic Dining
Reservations: Recommended during high season
Blackfin Bistro is a quaint restaurant just steps West of Truman Ave on Duval St. The libations include beer and a nice choice of select wines that are actually decent. Out back (open during the high season only), are additional tables in a garden setting that can accommodate large parties if needed. Frequented by locales as well as tourists, the food-​fare quality remains consistent.
DO: get the assorted cheese and fruit platter.
DO: get the Sautéd Calamari. SO TENDER! This is one of the few places that knows how to properly cook calamari (squid), and it’s not fried!
DO: try the Oven Roasted Chicken Wings. Great flavor and again, not fried. There has been some recent neighborhood scuddlebut that the recipe changed and it is not as good as it used to be, but I will need to get back to you on that.
DON’T: get the Conch Cakes. They are dense, have a lack of conch and flavor, and are overly breaded.
DON’T: get the Maine Lobster Roll. This is nothing more than a pulverized mayonnaise sandwich. Blackfin please! Do us all a favor and take it off the menu. Maybe a visit to DJ’s Clam Shack down the street may help with how to make a proper Lobster Roll. This is an embarrassment to a seafood faring town.
ON THE FENCE: Steamed Mussels with Garlic & Chorizo. The chorizo sausage at the bottom of the bowl overpowers this generally light and flavorful dish. If you are a chorizo fan and this combo doesn’t bother you, go for it. In my opinion it’s a bad marriage.
DO: try any of the burgers with hand cut fries. Made to order with fresh ingredients, these burgers are packed with tons of flavor. There is actually a good chance — for the most part — that if it is medium rare you want, medium rare you will get. ONE OF THE BEST BURGERS ON THE ROCK.
DO: get the Grilled Hanger Steak. This is a large dish for those that are super hungry or nursing a hangover. A true comfort food dish reminiscent of the northeast, the meat and accompanying hand cut fries are smothered in brown gravy and oh so yummy. However, this is not a dish for everyone. If you don’t like your entire meal covered in gravy, don’t get it.