Lionfish Modern Coastal Cuisine – San Diego

Great food, okay drinks, terrible service! No smiles, not welcome. Desiree took my order not knowledgeable no cares! 6pm 6/26/25

Lionfish is an upscale seafood restaurant in downtown San Diego inside of the Pendry hotel. The staff were very friendly and brought us a few special appetizers to try for our birthday. The ambiance of the restaurant is perfect to celebrate any special occasion or a nice date night.

We started off with the Mariscos Al Fuego and Wagyu Beef Tataki. The Wagyu melted in our mouths and the garlic ponzu it was served in was great. The Mariscos had shrimp and scallops in a delicious Togarashi Butter. These were two of my favorite dishes and a great way to start the meal. All of the sushi we ordered was AMAZING, the Geisha roll was my personal favorite. All of the mains we had lived up to the hype but the Spaghetti Lobster pasta sauce blew me away. The cognac cream sauce and tender lobster was amazing. I can’t wait to go back, the food and service was amazing!

Great menu with a lot of options, delicious and nicely presented food, wonderful staff and service.

There is no value or variety of selection. You get very little for the money. The server was very nice and good. Stay away for this place. The value for the money you spend is terrible. We had drinks, soup, and small appetizers for over $100. Terrible value. We when to another restaurant.

Salmon entree was heavenly and chocolate cookie/ice cream dessert was terrific but be prepared for very high noise level.

Loved the bang bang shrimp! Entrees were both excellent too. We enjoyed the gnocchi and harvest rice. Very flavorful!

I read the reviews prior to my dinner at Lionfish and the reviews were consistently pointed to the bad service. There is no negative review on the food, so I thought I'll give it a try, especially when I saw the manager responded to the reviewers which was a sign that they care and so hopefully would make some improvement. After my visit, I agreed with other reviewers. The service was horrid. The hostess were not friendly, in fact somewhat standoffish. They gave our table away after we already checked in, then later tried to seat us by the kitchen door. We asked for a different table, and ended up in a booth. The cocktails were very watered down. The appetizers were good. We liked the grilled octopus and the lamb lollipops. We had the gnocchi, the scallops, and the lobster spaghetti for our main dish, and they tasted very flat. Overall, it wasn't a horrible dinner, but I would not recommend this place to anybody.

We were at Lionfish for two hours and food and drinks were so slow we had to leave before our food arrived and our second round of drinks.

The duck was very dry. The sushi was pretty good, the sushi rolls average. Beautiful space. Service was a bit slow but the server was attentive.

Truly an excellent dining experience. Great vibe, kind waitress, delicious food. I highly recommend the grilled octopus!

Chicken was very dry for 50$. Taste very unseasoned. Drinks are overprice, I never seen a bar charge 18$ for Tito’s. I definitely would not wasted my money here

Overall it was an okay experience. Food was decent much like many other places nearby. Ambience was tremendously lacking. Nothing exciting inside. Noise level was so loud it was hard to hear. To be fair there was a large conference in town but was an meh experience

We visited Lionfish after getting engaged and the staff were phenomenal. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was perfect for celebrating a special event. We will certainly be returning the next time we are in San Diego.

I brought a group of 5 to the restaurant during a conference. While I understand that the restaurant was busy our group waited over an hour for our food to arrive with no communication from our server. No one came over to offer more drinks or even to refill water and it felt like we were abandoned. Simple communication from the staff would have greatly helped us to manage expectations.

Booked well in advanced only to show up to a closed restaurant, despite them emailing me the day before to confirm my attendance.

They booked it out for a private event without bothering to tell any of their guests. Amateurs.