The Company Shed

Dangerous pieces of shrapnel shoot past my head as I down my fourth oyster. Ptiiiiing shhhhwwwwtttt. Tfoooooow. I duck and sway. Note to self. Paintball goggles needed next time.
It’s like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan.
But with crab shell not bullets.
Now that’s the sort of restaurant I want to dine in.
One that isn’t a restaurant at all, but a shed.
With service at the front and kitchen roll on the table and mahoosive platters being carried out from the kitchen laden with squeaky fresh shellfish and seafood.
And each table bursting with people who have totally entered into the spirit of the place, crab cracker in one hand, Bounty Extra absorbent in the other, and for those lucky enough to have three hands, oyster in the other. This is the type of place where three hands are a bonus.
Diners are invited to bring their own bread, because The Company Shed doesn’t do bread. And you can bring your own alcohol too although they have a lovely selection themselves.
The staff are young and energetic and spend their time bringing you more mayonnaise or wiping up after you because you can’t help but make a mess when you eat here.
It’s down and dirty and you may leave with a four inch piece of crab shell embedded in your skull millimetres from your cerebral cortex. But as long as that’s not the part of the brain that deals with eating, job’s a good ‘un.
This might not be everybody’s cup of tea, although by the size of the queues I’m not sure that’s true. If you rock up any time after 12 on a weekend likelihood is you won’t get in at all. It’s first come first served and after that they put you on a list.
They open up at 9am and last service is at 4pm.
The Company Shed is situated on Mersea Island. The Island itself isn’t much to write home about although a walk along the marsh land is nice and if you’re into birds you’re in like flynn. But If you’re within a hundred miles of The Company Shed, my advice is get yourself down there. Delicious fun.

Holy moly!
So… a friend of mine suggested we make a pilgrimage to this place from the comfort of central London because, he claimed, the seafood was excellent.
We reluctantly agreed, making comments about how it was so far away we might as well have gone to France where we would be pretty much guaranteed great seafood.
We arrived and found it impossible to park anywhere. Seriously, there’s no parking in this sleepy town. You might as well walk from London.
So, transferring from our trusty steed to foot, weary and tired, we slowly approached the place… only to find it was completely packed. We had an hour and a half wait to be seated (we wanted a table for 8). Come back in about an hour and 15 minutes they said, just in case.
So we trekked to the beach. It’s not much of a beach really. You wouldn’t want to go sunbathing there or anything because there’s a nuclear power station across the bay. We didn’t know it was a nuclear power station at the time though, so all was ok.
Anyway, we went back, were seated and told how to order. It’s a bit like Nando’s in that you sit down, look at the menu, then go and order, but unlike Nando’s you only pay after your meal.
1. They sell a small selection of drinks but if you want your own stuff you need to bring it.
2. They only sell seafood and the odd bit of fish, and side salad. If you want bread, dessert or a side dish, bring it yourself. Except salad, because they sell that. It says so on the sign.
Service was friendly. It seemed family-​run and I appreciated that.
The place looks like a dump from outside and inside. But it really isn’t.
It’s awesome!
The seafood we had (a wide selection) was delicious and ended up only costing us about £15 each. Equivalent stuff in London would have been at least double that, possibly more. And thankfully none of the fish had 3 eyes.
So yeah, it is worth the epic journey to get there. We will be going there again :)

great place for fish absolutely loved it! have to agree it isnt the nicest place inside but it is not meant to be and i think that if it was then it would lose it’s charm for sure. the fish is the freshest and best that you can find anywhere

This is the third time I have visited The Company Shed, and it won’t be the last.
As I have said previously, don’t expect finery, there isn’t any. Just good, cheap seafood.
Take your own wine and bread and sit back at the plastic covered tables in an odd assortment of chairs and ENJOY.
Fresh seafood delivered to your table by friendly staff (usually in welly boots and plastic aprons). Fantastic local Colchester oysters. A plateful of mixed seafood (£11.95 pp) and oysters at 75p each. They sell fresh fish to take-​away too, makes the local fishmonger weep.. I asked for some local oysters but was told they didn’t have any in stock so I opted for the Gigas variety. During the course of the meal a guy came over to inform me that they had just had a delivery of some Colchester oysters. Needless to say, another eight were ordered.
There is only one problem, a very minor one. Since Tom Parker-​Bowles (The Sunday Mail), The Hairy Bikers and many other TV and newspaper reporters have decided to give their high praise of this ‘shed’ the queues have increased. A little bit of advice. Make a visit to The Shed for a late brunch. Arrive about 11.00 am and you will get a table easily. Arrive after 12.00 and expect to have to queue outside for a table. They don’t take bookings.
There is a car park nearby. £2.50 for anything over 2 hours.
Get down there and enjoy.

Its a beautiful thing to know, while you are eating, that you are tasting tastes and having an experience that you will remember for years to come. The premise of this unpretentious restaurant is that they do the seafood, and you do everything else — bring your own wine and bread/​butter (no corkage charge). All of the menu items are local, so there is the added bonus of supporting the local economy, as you enjoy the freshest most natural seafood.
We ordered two plates of oysters, breaded clams, filet of sole, tiger prawns, scallops sauteed with bacon, beet cured gavalax and a seafood platter. We discussd what our favorite dishes were afterwards and ended up commending each one, with no conclusion.
The restaurant was very busy, but if you arrive a little early for lunch, you may avoid a wait. Even if there is a line, its a lovely opportunity to take a stroll on the pier and take in the delightful surroundings.