Crab Catcher Restaurant Reviews

A beautiful setting, a window seat overlooking the water outstanding service and a meal second to none. I had the Maine Lobster which was sweet and moist with fresh vegetables it was delightful as well as delicious. My guest had crab and couldn't have been more pleased also with fresh vegetables. The waiter was very attentive, the service all around was just outstanding. Would recommend it to anyone who wanted to have a special night. I recommend a walk along the beach after dinner.

Best ocean view restaurant, called and asked for a window seat and it was granted on a Holiday !!
We ordered their famous
Lobster, and king crab legs were delicious.
The staff was on point...and very attentive.
Cant wait to come back.

The restaurant is tucked down at the bottom of a small shopping center. It's right next to the La Jolla cove. The view of the water, and hillside are beautiful. They brought out sourdough bread to start. We ordered a half of the oysters, which were good but not as sweet as I'm used to. I then had the special which was swordfish on a bed of a fried rice with eggplant. It had a sauce on it that was very tasty but it was not spread evenly throughout the dish. The fish was cooked perfectly. We also got the Mac and cheese which the cheese was a little on the thin side.

The service is very bad now. I've been visiting this restaurant for many years. Now everything is changed. The manager was kind of mocking the clients, and giving a terrible service. Disappointed very badly. Will never visit them again. There are a lot of good places near them. Better to try all of them because this one is for sure not good any more.

Best fish tacos ever, and the view from our table was awesome

We don't live in CA but when we come over, we eat here.

Not pricey but has good customer service and good food....... But the quantity could be more for the price.

Such a beautiful view...priced very reasonable for brunch!! Had a nice table with a beautiful view. The service was amazing

Delicious food combined with wonderful views! The Crab Bisque was delicious, the Tuna Tacos were very good, and the Chocolate Torte was excellent. Accommodating staff.

Beautiful view and good food. Crab bisque was so good with lot of crab meat. Pasta was also good. There is not many people at that time so we could get the window seat and enjoyed the view too. The stuff was kinda slow which could be improved

This is where we had our wedding reception going on 30 years ago. Love this restaurant, the people there are so wonderful and we are looking so forward to coming back and having at least a dinner there sometime in the future. Wonderful, wonderful memories and we appreciate all they do!

I came during happy hour. Great king crab legs and lobster. Service was great. I had an excellent view of the ocean from my table. I will definitely come back.

Wonderful staff and delicious food. Will be back for sure

Food is always good and their desserts-yum! Our server seemed frustrated or irritated that we were dining with 2 infants. Otherwise, what a great lunch! We went at noon and the main dining area was not busy at all. The weather and the view of the beach are beautiful so patio seating is also a wonderful option.

Great appetizers, happy hour and awesome desert. Book before 7pm to avoid rush hour

Fine atmosphere Exquisite and fresh Del Mar food. Excellent service

Great atmosphere and views! Had Brunch with free mimosa's. The wait staff wanted to be sure our visit and bday lunch was the best possible and went out of their way to ensure that it was! Food was very good!

Came here with the groupon on a Wednesday night ~5:30pm.
SO and I were pretty much the only ones in the restaurant.

Waiter was prompt but seemed sorely disinterested in serving us.
Also, waiting staff and bar staff were chatting throughout our meal very loudly in the dining area. Since the restaurant was mostly empty, the chatter was extremely distracting.

Food was of much lower quality than expected.
Pasta was tough and not very good.

Drinks from the bar were tasty with catchy descriptions.

Overall, very unmemorable.

Alfonso the waiter was absolutely fantastic!! Veru professional and friendly!! The food was delicious.

Save your money and go to the cheesecake factory or find another local restaurant. Forgot our reservations, house bread was hard with hard butter, calamari was frozen and rubber like, shirmp and grits was dipped in Tabasco sauce and butter, lastly our entree was cold....to top it off the waitress stole my 13 cent change!

Great staff and delicious seafood. Always gotta get the baked oysters and king crab legs !

The view is a excellent and the service is good. I thought the spaghetti with white clams was good but I would have appreciated more pasta. The crab BLT was tasty but it was crab salad with tomato and bacon. I was expecting lump crab meat. The paradise macadamia ice cream pie is good. The restaurant didn't appear to have air conditioning and the open windows did not provide enough of a cross breeze. I recommend eating on the outside deck.

Great views looking North to La Jolla Shores, Blacks Beach, Torrey Pines, Del Mar and all the way to Oceanside...

Visited from Colorado and decided to go here for dinner. It was very good!

Food and service was great. Prices were very high in my opinion!. Be prepared to spend $ 70 per person.

Beautiful ocean views of La Jolla Cave. Staff was professional and friendly, food delicious. Had the burger, lobster pappardelle, crab enchiladas. Highly recommend the bloody Mary shrimp cocktail!

Great staff...made sure all 7 of us were seated in the window. Wonderful food! We stopped in for lunch midweek.

Outstanding! Says it all. Get Misty to be your waitperson and be prepared to be spolied. Great food and wine service. Go on Friday night and wine bottles are half off....

This was a special dinner we had.we both had the fish specials which were so flavorful and delicious. Our waiter Richard was very attentive and sweet. The bartender made perfect drinks. Our favorite was the Stockholm Royale. I have been coming to Crab catchers since the 80s and there is a good reason this restaurant is still around!

If you want to get ripped off come here. They bring the desert menu which has no prices on the items and then when they bring the check you are shocked to see how expensive they are!! ALSO, THEY CHARGE AN EXTRA FEE SRCG surcharge of 3.9% on all checks due to increasing costs so they say! (Other restaurants in the area don't) If you want to split your plate they charge $6 dlls which I guess is okay, the portions are not that big so you woukdwou be splitting much anyways. ALSO DO NOT ORDER OFF THE SMALL plate items. They should rename it to MINI plate items. Small plate items are mircosopic. The only thing good about this restaurant is the service, the view and SOME entree items but that's it!!!

Very disappointed! We arrived early for Happy Hour and found a great table... It went downhill from there!! Waitress spilled my beer on my entire side and offered nothing but a brief apology. We then ordered a few items that took a long time to get to the table and once again the waitress forgot a drink that we ordered for the meal. Once again a very brief apology. We then received our bill for the meal and was once again shocked! 3.9% was added to the bottom of our bill due to rising cost of running a very high level restaurant in a very prestigious area... REALLY!!
That was an absolute kick in the gut! RAISE YOUR PRICES! I don t think you are going to get complaints about a $2.50 taco instead of $2.00.
NO LIKES SUPRISES! Especially when you are charging $56 for a $20 steak and $8 for a beer, come on!!

Good food I wish we knee about the parking garage. Don't eat the steak

Window seats are the most worth it obviously if you could grab yourself a table, however since we went there at night sun had already set since we were busy taking pictures. Food was fresh, however I personally expected better due to the price we were paying. Baked Oysters was tasty although they were a bit cold, probably due to the fact that they were short on staff. However atmosphere was still nice and cozy.

Make sure you get a Bloody Craby! Great view and they make sure the champagne never stops flowing here:) Jordan C. Soper, Financial and Real Estate Expert

Unhappy with this place. We ordered or meals it took about an hour for our food to come out then it was cold. Not cool!! I do have to say the clam chowder is excellent!

Food/service/views were good. But very strange to have a seafood restaurant right next to the ocean where all the seafood is shipped in from other parts of the country. Lobster from Maine, oysters and clams from New England or the Northwest, crab from Alaska, most of the fish from elsewhere - we have all those critters right here, why fly them in? :P

Overpriced for the quality. All dishes tasted pale (we ordered salmon, lobster, seabase, sword), made me wonder why they didn't add some salt while they are so closed to ocean :-) Even salmon, easiest fish to make it taste good still wasn't a tasty one here.
Never eat at tourist-attraction restaurants ever again.

The Service was amazing and the food superb quality! Great job to the Chef and staff. For a scenic view and experience sit outside and enjoy. If you want to dine smartly go to groupon! It's worth it.

Service was awesome, food was very good and a gorgeous view of the cove.

The view and service were wonderful. Ordered the shrimp pasta. It was absolutely fantastic!!

Went in 2015. The food was amazing. The view: gorgeous. The only reason I won't give 5 stars is that during certain times of day the smell from the cove can be...stronger than enjoyable. Uncontrollable issue, but patrons should be aware and plan accordingly.

We went to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary. Atmosphere and view were amazing. Very friendly staff and the food was great. I will come back again some day and get the Lobster which my friend ordered. Portions were good and well worth it.

Nice, way pricy for the meal. You pay for the view.

Excellent food and service. My wife and I came for our anniversary and the staff gave us the 5 star experience we were hoping for. We will be coming back again soon.

Best shrimp cocktail and Pina Colada. Good service, good food.

Was in La Jolla for my Birthday and I was so upset with my experience here!! Expected nothing but the best and got the completely opposite! First of all food took hours to get to us! When it finally came it was so gross! The octopus we ordered felt like chewing gum. Just completely the worst place.

Great location with beach access. Good for families. Food and service were okay...strangely, the restroom is shared with the Italian restaurant next door and it can become quite a maze.

La Jolla is pricey, however this place has a lot to offer for a reasonable price. This place is tucked away and is easier to access from Coast Dr. That leads to its biggest downside... the proximity to the cove exposes outside seating to a strong odor from the seals. However, fantastic views add to the fresh seafood offerings. I've been here a few times. I prefer this place for lunch, or happy hour. Fresh shucked oysters, fire shrimp and grits, fish tacos and grilled octopus. Happy Hour offers several local brews and specialty martinis in the spacious bar area. If you prefer a full dinner service, they have a large seating area, as well, with a full menu. On street parking is usually a killer, but they do have a parking garage next to the Coast Dr. entry and they validate.

The staffvwas amazing even for the servers last day on the job. She was friendly helpful and the food is amazing. We felt a bit underdressed but overall it was a great experience.

Great service, but a bit pricey for the lack of flavor of the food (whole lobster and crab stuffed fish) the fish was a bit dry. We had a cozy little window spot for our anniversary dinner, including ants around the inside window.

A little pricey place, but the food is good and it has a scenic views from the dining room.
The Octopus was very soft and the lobster bisque is pretty good.

Spent three days in La Jolla. This was our only bad experience. For 168.00 we received warm oysters and a small plate of king crab legs. The server was great though. To top it off, we received another person's food in our doggie bag. We do not recommend this restaurant. And for the price, one would expect higher quality of food.

We ordered the lobster and a filet mignon. The steak had the taste of gristle coating the entire outside of the meat. Inside was cooked nearly to medium but pretty rare in the middle. The potato s served with it were horrendous as if they had been sprayed by some form of cleanser.

The bread served prior to the dinner was dry and tasteless.

The lobster came to the table as you d expect but when de-shelling the claws. The meat wasn t even cooked. It was as if the entire lobster had been floating atop the water rather than submerged.

This was a very amateur attempt at fine dining. I would not recommend this place to anyone.

Review is for casual dining area we went for happy hour drinks. Ambiance for causal dining is a bit grimy and deserves a 3 star. But the waiterss BREE, really made our experience nice and hence four star. She was very attentive and was just a genuine sweet person. She made the icky casual dining place feel like a fun place. Views of water are inside behind windows. But keep in mind this is the casual dining area only. We got several drinks and left feeling Bree made our experience much better

Happy hour drinks and crab legs, and a very well done burger . Nice place to be after snorkeling.

Best cocktail sauce I have ever had! Beautiful LaJolla view with seals below.

Seafood wasn't fresh and you are better off orderung a burger here.

It has an excellent view of the ocean. Their service is superb as well.

We went to Crab Catcher's filter a late dinner. The were plenty of open tables so we got seated rather quickly when with a larger group. Unfortunately it was after dark so we couldn't see the view very well, but I am sure it is a great view during the day and an exceptional view at sunset. I had the Tiger Shrimp Pasta and would recommend it if you like shrimp and pasta.

Went to this place for a friend's wedding. There's a good view and the food is both filling and tasty. Highly recommend for special occasions.

It was an amazing dinner- great food and excellent service!

Higher end seafood restaraunt with lots of amazing fresh options. I particularly loved the oven roasted oysters & the king crab ceviche tacos. The service is excellent & so are the views. Save room for dessert paradise pie is a great end to the meal.

Great lunch, wife and I shared the seafood combo platter which was delicious. Got a great deal with a Groupon, will come back again.

It seems that this place is never really busy but the food was great. The bartender from New Hampsha was really sweet. She made great recommendations on the menu and made a great Martini. I want to say her name was Danny. The view and the access up the park and the cave is a bonus

Great Service but the food was a dissapointment and too expansive

What a lovely restaurant! Great food, GREAT service (thank you Chris!l and great view!

I love it. The food is great and so is the service. If you want a more detailed description, then look somewhere else.

Awesome Team! Thank you, Justin!!! Great holiday late lunch/early dinner!

So good here, I would eat here again in a heartbeat.

We ordered the King crab and filet mignon plate to share and both were fantastic. Service was excellent from start to end, really friendly people.

Delicious lunch in La Jolla with a view. We sat in a cozy window seat with a view of La Jolla cliff and the ocean. We started with crab wontons which were perfect. Then I had the crab enchiladas and they were delicious. My girlfriend had a tasty Crab BLT. We finished with the Paradise Pie and I had Raspberry Sorbet. Good location. Friendly service. Great food. I would recommend.

I had the ceviche tacos and they were excellent! The ocean view is beautiful and the staff was friendly

It was a little expensive but so delicious great ocean view and perfect service!!