The Best Seafood Near Porta, by the Record
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Rank 1. César
Seafood
A former printing house in SoHo now holds one of the more decorated new tasting menus in the country: two Michelin stars and a spot on the World's 50 Best, all within its first year. César Ramirez builds a 13-course seafood-focused menu from a lifetime of detours, Mexico, Chicago, French kitchens, and long stretches in Japan, with sauces precise enough to settle any argument. The room is spare and the counter seats face the kitchen, which is exactly the point.
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Rank 2. Penny
Seafood
Two marble counters run the length of the kitchen, fronted by mounds of ice holding oysters, clams, and Champagne in roughly equal proportion. Penny is an all-bar seafood restaurant above Claud in the East Village, and the whole point is watching things get shucked, sliced, and dressed in front of you. It landed on North America's 50 Best Restaurants list. Most seats are walk-in, so arrive before doors open if you'd like one.
- 50 Best #19 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants
- Food & Wine The Top 15 US Restaurants
- Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
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Rank 3. Le Bernardin
Seafood
Eric Ripert's three-Michelin-star seafood temple in Midtown runs on French technique and a quiet confidence that doesn't need to announce itself. The menu moves from nearly raw to lightly cooked, and the room, all white tablecloths and soft jazz, fills nightly with people who dressed for the occasion. The thinly pounded yellowfin tuna over foie gras toast is the dish that gets talked about. The sommelier just won North America's Best Sommelier Award, which tracks.
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Rank 4. Crevette
Spanish-French Seafood
White tablecloths and cream walls give Crevette the look of a classic European brasserie, but the cooking runs along the coasts of Spain and France with enough color to make you forget Manhattan is outside. This is a proper seafood restaurant, lively and full, with the bar pulling its own crowd. The team behind Lord's and Dame keeps the room humming and the martini list pointed.
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Rank 5. Dame
Seafood
A quaint seafood restaurant on MacDougal where the wine list is sorted by whether you'd rather be James Bond or Austin Powers, and that tracks with everything else here. The fish and chips, a hake fillet in lacey batter, is what put the place on the map when it was still a pop-up. The menu turns with the season, the room is small and blue-and-white, and getting a table requires actual planning.
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Rank 6. Smithereens
New England Seafood
A subterranean New England seafood joint in the East Village where the menu runs heavily toward the ocean and the wine list follows suit, mostly whites chosen to keep pace with it. The New York Times named it among the city's best new restaurants, and the sommelier took a Next Wave Award. The celery root float has become something of a minor cult object, which tells you something about the kitchen's sense of humor.
- VinePair Sommelier of the Year · The Next Wave Awards · Nikita Malhotra
- The Infatuation #7 · The Top-Rated New Restaurants
- Punch Best New Bartenders · Logan Rodriguez
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Rank 7. Cervo's
Iberian Seafood
Mosaic tiles, warm wood, and a room where everyone is happily crammed elbow to elbow set the scene at this Iberian seafood spot on Canal Street. The kitchen draws from the coastal traditions of Spain and Portugal, leaning into briny, bright flavors without apology. The fish preparations are the reason to come. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, and Bon Appétit once named it among America's best new restaurants.
- Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
- Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
- The Infatuation #24 · The 25 Best Restaurants In NYC
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Rank 8. Sailor
Seafood
The line wrapping around the Fort Greene corner is not a glitch; it's just how things work at April Bloomfield's neighborhood seafood bistro, where eggs with celery salt and a roast chicken somehow outshine the obvious Instagram moment. The skylit room is bright and unhurried, the menu turns with the seasons, and lunch earns its own following with a burger that regulars treat as a state secret.
- Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
- Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 9. Theodora
Mediterranean Seafood
Wood smoke hangs in the air the moment you walk into this Fort Greene seafood restaurant, which should tell you something about how the kitchen operates. Chef Tomer Blechman anchors the menu around dry-aged fish and open-fire cooking, pulling from a Mediterranean pantry that keeps things interesting without announcing itself. The bar draws a crowd that clearly has opinions about natural wine, and the pita alone justifies showing up early.
- VinePair Food & Beverage Program of the Year · The Next Wave Awards
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Time Out The 45 best restaurants in NYC right now
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Rank 10. Oceana
Modern Seafood
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Rank 11. Oceans
Seafood
The raw bar and sushi counter crown the back of the room, which tells you where things are headed before you've sat down. This is polished, seafood-forward fine dining on Park Avenue South, where the sourcing swings local and global and the preparations range from ceviche and towering platters to Japanese-inflected entrées. The Alaskan black cod with sake glaze and yuzu dashi is the kitchen at its most assured. Dress up a little.
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Rank 12. Saint Julivert Fisherie
Seafood
Squeezed into a narrow Clinton Street storefront, Saint Julivert is a coastal wine bar where seafood does most of the talking and the small-producer wine list does the listening. The kitchen runs on a coastal imagination that drifts from tempura squash to Ibérico pork without losing the thread. Cobble Hill regulars who know to book early fill the room most nights. The Michelin Guide has it on their list.
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Rank 13. San Sabino
Italian-influenced Seafood
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- Eater The Best Classic Restaurants in NYC
- Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in New York City
- Eater The Best Restaurants in Midtown
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Rank 15. Quique Crudo
Seafood Cocktail Bar
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Rank 16. Zoli
Seafood
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Rank 17. AbuQir
Seafood, Egyptian
You pick your fish from the case, tell them how you want it, and then somehow end up eating one of the better seafood meals in the city. The New York Times ranked this Egyptian seafood market at number seventeen in New York, which raises real questions about what the fancier places on that list are doing with their tablecloths. The room is Astoria's Little Egypt, not a dining room, and nobody seems to mind.
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- The New York Times #17 · The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City
- Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in New York City
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Rank 18. Hamido Seafood
Egyptian Seafood
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Rank 19. Randazzo's Clam Bar
Seafood
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Rank 20. 2nd Jetty Seafood
Seafood
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Rank 21. Varka Estiatorio
Mediterranean Seafood
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A white farmhouse with actual working fields out the window sets the scene at this North Salem seafood restaurant, where "farm to table" includes a smokehouse, a curing room, and a farm shop next door. The kitchen grows and preserves much of what it serves, down to the hot sauce and the carrot bread. Cocktails lean into the gardens too. A Michelin Selected restaurant that earns the pastoral postcard without winking at it.