Infirmary Square, No Harbour.

Welcome. We’re Sapphire Seafood Kitchen, at 19 Infirmary Square, Leicester. There is no harbour here. There was no seafood boil, either, until we built this room. The tray is the story — lobster, crab, king prawns, sauce on your wrists, and a full bar that stays open while you crack shells.

Come find us: sapphire-leicester.com · about us · the 2025 menu (PDF) · @sapphire_leicester · book on OpenTable · our FishRestaurants.com page

The city had everything except a boil

Leicester eats well. It just never had an American-style seafood boil — Southern Cajun heat, the lot tipped into one tray, eaten with your hands. We opened on Infirmary Square to change that. Our about page says it plainly: we are Leicester’s first seafood boil restaurant, and the only one here with a full bar under the same roof. Cocktails, wine, spirits, mocktails — not a side note, part of the night.

Monday to Thursday we open at 5pm. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we open at noon; that midday service is the only lunch we run. Every night we close at 11. Call 0116 212 0871 or email info@sapphire-leicester.com if the table is for six and the tray is the whole point.

When the paper lands first

The boil does not arrive like fine dining. It arrives on Sapphire paper, in a black tray, before anyone asks how you take your steak. Crab legs cross the middle. King prawns keep their shells. Corn and potato sit in the same seasoned tide. Yellow rice comes in a clear cup, stained at the rim — because rice on a side plate would lie about what kind of meal this is.

Sometimes the lobster is whole, claws and tail still arguing on the liner, crackers laid out like the kitchen already knows you will need them. Sometimes the photograph is almost only legs: snow crab from above, prawns tucked underneath, the rice cup bright as a yolk. Nobody fanned the meat for you. That is the luxury we mean — the animal still looks like itself.

What the claw is, before you crack it

Guests ask whether our lobster is “the big-claw kind.” Usually, yes — the boil is built around clawed Atlantic lobster and tails, not a warm-water tail-only plate. Did you know? On most menus the word *lobster* hides four different animals — only two of them bring claws to the table. We sit on the claw-and-tail side; the full breakdown is on FishRestaurants’ lobster guide at the bottom of this article.

Crab is the other half of the tray. Snow crab clusters with three king prawns are £30 on our menu. Blue swimmer comes five pieces for £20. Sunday is the night we push snow crab hardest: two clusters for £50. Snow legs and blue swimmer are not the same species — the crab guide below the story explains which is which; our red sauce is what matters once the shell is open.

Eight king prawns are £20; eighteen on the deluxe line are £35. Crayfish has its own price on the card. Whole lobster and lobster tail both come with three king prawns — the menu names the pile, not a French preparation. Burgers and desserts exist for the chair that lost its nerve. The paper on the tray is not for them.

Sauce, gloves, and the bar still pouring

We mix signature sauces in-house. The room is ocean-coloured on purpose — blue and teal, a little theatre — because Leicester cannot see water from the table. You will still smell spice and butter when the tray passes.

The homepage calls us Leicester’s first, finest and sauciest seafood boil. The saucy part is not marketing. It is the napkin count. A boil without drinks is takeaway that found chairs; we keep the bar running so the table can stay through a second cocktail while the shells pile up.

If you are planning from Instagram, we are @sapphire_leicester. Tag the tray — the logo on the paper reads clearly in every photo you sent us. Students and Blue Light Card holders get 10% on our offers page. The menu prints a 10% discretionary service charge. Wednesday is wings two for one. None of that replaces the boil; it just gives the week a rhythm.

The style has a shelf on this site: seafood boil. Other fish rooms in the city — most of them sushi and curry houses, honest company — sit on the Leicester directory. We are the square that smells like Cajun spice on a Friday.