Review: The Rum & Crab Shack

One of Exeter's newest offerings, away from the new Queen Street dining development, is the Rum & Crab shack.  Nestled in the Princesshay area, near Cathedral green, it's in a great central location. They boast a wide range of cocktails and an eclectic menu predominantly featuring, you guessed it, rum & crab.

We were invited to try it out for ourselves and we visited on a Wednesday evening.  The venue is pretty small but even on a Wednesday was packed with customers.  We were really impressed with how vast the menu was, and the good selection of rum based cocktails.  I had been recommended to try their speciality rum, Dead Man’s Fingers Cornwall. It is their own small-batch, house, spiced rum with flavours with cinnamon, nutmeg and orange notes- delicious!  I also tried it in the house cocktail, Dead Mans Grip. A rum sour of sorts, with their house spiced rum, lemon, lime, egg white, passionfruit and a splash of Benedictine. It was strong!!


I was a little worried at first that the menu would only be crab based, but there are lot's of options available ranging from crab to sirloin steak.   There is also other seafood on offer like lobster and fish steak. I chose to go for Buttermilk Fried chicken for my starter, served with with BBQ Boston beans.


The chicken was beautifully cooked with a delicious coating, yet succulent in the middle. The beans were a great accompaniment.

Nick chose to have tempura battered squid rings with a house chilli dip.  He really enjoyed them, although he was disappointed that the chilli dip was more of a sweet chilli and didn't have too much spice.

For mains I was determined to have some crab and the dish that appealed to me most was the crab nachos. Nachos loaded with crab meat, salsa, corn, spring onion and melted cheese.  The serving was huge and double layered!  The only thing that disappointed me was that the dish was completely stone cold when it was served, even the melted cheese.  This took a lot away from it and meant I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.


Nick had the spicy rice-based dish, Jambalaya, with tiger prawns, crab, chorizo and shrimp.  Again it was a really generous portion size which Nick struggled to finish.  There was quite a lot of prawns, crab, shrimp and chorizo throughout the dish but the rice was very stodgy, almost in one solid lump, but tasty none the less.
Overall the meal was nice and we enjoyed our evening. I would really like to go back and try some more of the cocktails!