Red Snapper

I had a take away and the service was fast and precise!
When I went there to collect my food the atmosphere was lovely and the staff friendly!
The food was delicious (a bit unsalted for me); I can’t wait to go there and have a proper Thai dinner!

This is one of two Thai places just up the road from me… and I’ve never ended up going to the other one because I LOVE Red Snapper. Admittedly, I do always order the same thing though: chicken satay to start, and beef Pad Thai for a main. But it’s always amazing. And so reasonably priced! It’s perfect for a lazy evening for me.
Tips: it’s cash only and the Co-​op on the corner’s ATM is not always great for being in service. It’s also BYOB, but the Co-​op DOES have you covered for that! It also is quite small, so I’d call for a reservation if you want to go after 6:30pm on a weekend.
Staff are always lovely. Definitely a firm favourite. :)

Red Snapper’s a cute little BYOB place. Handily located next to a load of off licenses and the Co-​op, so you don’t have to drag bottles and such all the way out with you, one of you can just pop out and grab some when you’re there.
It’s pretty understated and nice to come for a chilled, casual evening.
The menu is Thai and the food can be good depending what you go for! I can recommend the Tom Yum soup which is really rich in flavour, very tasty and quite a large helping. However of you go for this to start, be careful what you choose for a main. After I went for the beef in chilli and lemon sauce and it was basically the toughest pieces of beef swimming in more soup! The sauces seem to be very runny, liquidy almost. I felt a bit soup over loaded and ended up feeling queasy. On the other hand if I’d have gone for what the Boyf had, I Believe I’d have faired better. He choose more of a stir fry type dish, chicken something (!) and egg fried rice and that was delicious — I should have chose that!
They did whole steamed sea bass’s which looked good but we’ve yet to try one.
I would have liked a jug of water for the table as we had to keep waiting for the waiter to top up our small glasses and I kept getting very thirsty. I like to drink LOTS of water. And the rest! ;)
I shall be back to try more again soon.

Great little thai restaurant!
When it’s full it’s a bit of a squeeze, but if you don’t mind squeezing up to a stranger it’s fine!
The food is very reasonably priced and the restaurant is BYOB but which saves on the pennies even more! The food tastes really fresh and there is a good variety to choose from (not just your standard green curry). I recommend the fish cakes!
The staff are so friendly as well! So the place has a great ambience!
Definitely recommend!

We were disappointed with this Thai restaurant. We ordered two dishes– Chicken with cashew nuts and Beef with chilli and fresh herbs. Both the sauces were the same (salty and flavourless) and the beef dish had no fresh herbs. Nothing to distinguish the sauces, and in my experience not traditionally Thai (having spent a year in Thailand!) The portion sizes were modest and we felt that we were hurried out of the restaurant. However the saving grace was the fish cakes– they were tasty and authentic.

On a reviewing mission as a new years resolution… Red Snapper is more than worthy of a review before I get fed up and quit like every other resolution… this is just about the best Thai in Brighton and Hove. Often get takeaway but love eating in… food is delicious… also one of the few places around where you can BYO… corkage charge is also cheap…

Red Snapper is an interesting little restaurant at Seven Dials. It’s a quaint place with candle burnt menu’s and a small number of tables. I would suggest phoning in advance to book as it can get quite busy on the weekend.
They also don’t sell booze, but have a very reasonable corking charge (a paltry 50p per bottle of wine). This means that a meal instantly becomes a bit cheaper without sacrificing quality. The menu covers a good range of Thai cuisine and I enjoyed a good mixed starter platter and Tom Yum soup with my girlfriend.
Sadly, the main dishes didn’t quite live up to the starters and were both lacking in spice. I guess you would be able to request some additional heat and this really comes down to a preference of palate. The staff are all very nice and make sure that you enjoy your time at the restaurant.
I would go back to eat here once more, but would definitely ask for extra chilli.

I’ve never been to the second Red Snapper so I’ll just talk about this one on Dyke Rd. Started by Pan, an ex war photographer who hails from Bangkok and in a former life slunk his considerable 6“3 inches through the underbrush to photograph Khmer Rouge soldiers in Cambodia, Red snapper feels like a slice on Thailand. Well it does if you squint your eyes and stare at the cherry lights and take in the tang of coconut sauce coming from the kitchen. With all the usual pad thai and red curry dishes plus many other sizzlers this is a popular haunt so book ahead. The interior is rustic Thai, with wood walls and close knit tables. BYO.

The Red Snapper is a great authentic Thai restaurant on Seven Dials. It can be quite cozy when busy so best not to booked at peak times. But its worth squeezing in to enjoy the gorgeous food and reasonable prices. Its definitely one of the best Thai meals I’ve had in the city and worth the small trek out of town.
They are unlicensed but allow you to bring a bottle and some times have excellent cheap deals on so its worth keeping an eye out for promos.

Despite having been to the Red Snapper on Waterloo Street several times, I’ve only been to the one in Seven Dials once. There’s a reason for that, and it isn’t location. The Waterloo Street restaurant is actually further away from me, but my experience at Seven Dials was so disappointing that I didn’t want to go back.
We reserved our table, as usual, for their 9pm sitting. When we turned up, I was immediately disappointed to see how crammed together the tables were when the other restaurant is so comfortable. When we came to order they’d run out of their signature Red Snapper dish, at prime time on a Saturday night, no less. So, my friend ordered another fish dish. It turned out they’d run out of that too, so he ended up settling for chicken. Our food order took so long to arrive that we ended up drinking all of our booze before our starter even got there and had to go to the Off Licence across the road for more. Then there was so long in between our starter and main course that they ended up practically closing the restaurant up around us before we’d finished eating. Not conducive to a pleasant meal.
The food was lovely though, so I may be being a little unfair. However, I’d talked the place up so much to my friends (who’d never been there before) that it ended up being a huge anti-​climax. I think I’ll be sticking to the Waterloo Street one in future.

I love this little family run Thai restaurant that sits right on the dials.
The Red Snapper is a humbly sized, but perfectly formed little restaurant that’s romantically lit. For all the lovers who might want to crack into a spicy pad thai and prawn crackers, whilst watching the life of the Dials go by in front of their eyes, this place is amazing.
I plumped for a Spicy, beef dish, which I forget it’s name, although I believe I remember that it’s around the 40s (dish number not pounds) on the menu. The dish was really tasty, and they perfectly catered to me extra spicy requests, so I was a happy bunny. My flatmate had the Pad Thai, which for around a fiver is a good option if your on a budget and is always a winner, although it wasn’t significantly different to every other Pad Thai I’ve ever had, the ingredients seemed fresher and more lovingly prepared.
This place also had proper Thai style sticky rice, which so far I have not encountered in the U.K. Basically they are amazing, and have to be made a certain way, in a special bamboo rice steamer; AMAZING

First restaurant to try when moving here, the WATERLOO STREET one. Small, slightly scary as no one seemed to be around, then once we got over the embarassment of being the only people in, a couple of girls who knew the main serving guy came barging in and waited there while they made the guy serving call them a taxi. Ok, it was just that night but it freaked us out a bit. ANYWAY, medium price, really tasty meals, served beautifully (I think it was the chicken and cashew served in a hollowed out pineapple? Very cool). So yes, good food but it just takes ONCE for me to see a hair on food to totally put me off a restaurant.
And that happened. In or under my food was a hair. This was a takeaway we had (maybe that is extra for takeaway dishes) so I have been totally put off this place.
Service is pretty good, the main serving dude was a tad over– familar, they don’t have an alcohol licence but the guy helpfully suggested an off licence up the road. So it seemed a little shambolic, with good food but not enough attention to cleanliness. I know, hairs get everywhere, but at a restaurant/​takeaway, you gotta be careful.

I have only been to the restaurant on Waterloo Street (it is the same as the one in Seven Dials) and have always found the service to be friendly and quick. They always go out of their way to help you out. The food is delicious. I really like the seafood salad and the restaurant itself is cosy and warm. I have had many group dinners there and they have always been highly successful. Definitely call ahead to make sure they’re open! Def worth the trip if they are. and its BYO!

Food pretty good, slightly over priced, basic surroundings but nice enough. Worth a visit.

It has its virtues — cheap, friendly, and most of the fish dishes are delicious. They do takeaway, though not delivery, so are handy for lazy Seven Dials locals.
The but, however, is significant — where else does Pad Thai come with a tomato-​based sauce? It gives a disturbingly ketchup-​ish flavour that doesn’t sit right with me. Equally questionable is the kitchen’s odd reliance on inappropriate condiments — literally all the noodle dishes I’ve ordered have arrived with a fine coating of ground pepper. Like someone dumped a packet on it, for no particular reason, unless they were trying to make me sneeze.
For mostly tasty food of a Thai-​ish flavour, fine. If you fancy yourself a lover of noodles, however, you may prefer to try elsewhere. Red Snapper is 2 minutes from my house, and I order from a place 20 minutes away — make of that what you will.

This is a really fantastic restaurant! The food is amazing and the service is great — they don’t have a license so you have to bring your own booze, but it’s well worth it. Usually booked up it’s a really good idea to book in advance and check all is ok before you get there — looks like they have 2 sittings of evening meals. Food delicious and authentic, staff really friendly and the atmosphere is brilliant — all the locals know about it and you should too!

A very good Thai restaurant, and very reasonably priced — possibly the best (and most consistent) restaurant in Seven Dials. The quality of the food is very high with lots of fresh ingredients, and the menu has a very large choice of dishes, even by Thai standards. (Of course, you are superbly well catered for if you like both fish and spicy dishes — which I do).
The main downside is that it is so popular that getting a table here means either eating very early or very late, or booking ahead a couple of days in advance — especially at weekends. There are a lot of regulars who book a table from one week to the next. It’s also bit cramped and noisy, if that’s likely to worry you.
Strongly recommended.

Update: January 2009
Last week they were open again in Seven Dials, and as busy as ever. Not quite sure what is going on — best to ring ahead to check!
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Update: October 2008
The restaurant in Seven Dials has now closed: the branch at 42 Waterloo Street, Hove, BN3 1AY remains open. Tel: 1 273 733 733
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This is an incredibly popular Thai restaurant in the Seven Dials area, where booking is essential every night of the week.
The reason for its popularity isn’t hard to find: a wide range of reasonably authentic Thai dishes, all at very reasonable prices. They do an especially wide range of fish dishes, including the ‘Red Snapper’ of the title (although I presume this is bought in frozen, since it’s not found in UK waters?). They don’t have an alcohol license, so bring your own — this also helps keep prices down.
Although the menu focuses on fish and meat, there are plenty of vegetarian options (they will do any dish with tofu, on request). If you ask, they will also stir-​fry or steam your fish if you prefer it not to be deep fried. Portions of rice and noodles are generous, so order one between two. Expect a two-​course dinner for two to come to about £15 a head. The lunch-​time menu is very good value too.
Despite being very busy, service is always pretty good and friendly and, being a small place, you have no trouble finding someone to help if you need it.
Slight downers: because it’s small it does get very crowded, so it’s not the place for a quiet romantic meal. Also the lavatory is accessed via the outside, and gets a bit chilly in winter. But it would be churlish to deduct a star just for that