The Crab sits on Exeter Road, the wide street that drops from the town centre down towards the sea, with the Bournemouth International Centre standing directly across the way. It deals in one thing above all — shellfish landed on the south coast and cooked plainly enough to taste of itself. Crab and lobster head the menu, and the kitchen has earned AA Rosette recognition for the way it treats them. For a town with a long seafront but surprisingly few dedicated seafood rooms, it has held its reputation for years.
The food
Crab is the house signature, and lobster runs a close second. Around them the kitchen builds platters of scallops, mussels and squid, and takes in fish from Dorset day-boats as well as Newlyn, Brixham and Looe when the catch is better landed there. The cooking is confident rather than fussy — the point is to let good seafood speak, not to bury it. It is not a shellfish-only room, either: there is a Sunday roast, a shorter lunch menu through the day and a children’s menu, so a mixed table is easy to feed. Still, the reason to book is whatever came out of the water that morning.
The setting
The dining room belongs to the Park Central Hotel, and the mood is smart without being stiff. A smart-casual dress code applies in the evenings, and a resident pianist plays on some Friday and Saturday nights. When the weather turns, the patio comes into its own — a sheltered terrace that catches the sun and is one of the better spots in the centre to sit out with a cold glass and a plate of shellfish. Inside or out, it reads as an occasion restaurant that has not forgotten how to be relaxed.
Where it is
Exeter Road is about as central as Bournemouth gets. The Bournemouth International Centre is opposite, which makes the restaurant an easy stop before or after a show, and Bournemouth Beach and the pier are a short walk downhill. If you are staying nearby, it is reachable on foot from most of the West Cliff and town-centre apartments without going near a car.
Good to know
Book ahead, especially at weekends and on nights when the BIC has a big name in — tables go quickly. Lunch runs through the middle of the day and dinner in the evenings, but times move with the season, so check current hours before you go. For another seafront seafood option a little further along the shore, West Beach is worth a look, and the wider restaurants guide rounds up the rest of the town.