The Best Seafood Near San Marco, by the Record

The garden terrace faces the beach close enough to hear the sea, and that alone explains why tables fill up in summer. This is a modern seafood restaurant inside Hotel Mare, where the kitchen leans heavily on whatever swam recently, prepared with enough contemporary technique to keep things interesting without losing the plot. The wine list runs deeper than you'd expect at a coastal spot. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The sand on the floor is imported from Spain, and you'll receive sandals before you sit down. Davide Scabin's one-Michelin-star tasting menu restaurant inside the Grand Hotel Sitea is a full theatrical commitment: a single seafood tasting menu that deliberately runs heavy to light, opening with turbot and red wine fish glaze before easing toward vegetable-forward, acidic finishes. Completely straight-faced about the whole thing, which somehow makes it funnier.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The glazed walls open straight onto Genoa's Old Port, which makes the deliberately spare dining room feel like a sensible choice rather than an oversight. Il Marin is a Michelin-starred contemporary seafood restaurant where the kitchen leans hard into Ligurian waters, then complicates things with modern technique. Chef Marco Visciola finishes a spaghetti dish tableside like a bartender. Tasting menus run the show, though à la carte exists for the commitment-averse.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
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1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The dining room is a 17th-century olive oil press, stone mill and wooden press still in place under vaulted ceilings in a medieval village that looks like it was designed by a tourism board. The restaurant leans into its setting with Ligurian seafood given an imaginative push, the catch of the day landing in an Italian-style ceviche, local ingredients doing most of the talking. The simpler bistro around the corner, I Torchietti, is run by the same team if you want a lighter commitment.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Sitting near the alleged birthplace of Christopher Columbus, this seafood-forward trattoria is run by the Scala family, who also operate the well-regarded San Giorgio nearby. The menu leans on the market and the region, with cappon magro appearing often, though meat dishes get a careful, lightly modern treatment too. A covered outdoor terrace opens onto a pedestrian street, and the wine list handles itself well by the glass.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A tiny doorway on via Assarotti opens into a handful of tables, just enough to fill with regulars who called ahead. This intimate seafood restaurant in Genoa runs on the chef's instinct for pairing classic technique with unexpected combinations, with the focus almost entirely on whatever came off the boat. The cappon magro, a layered Ligurian seafood salad, has its own following. Book before you leave the house.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Mirrors and silverware set the tone at this classic Genoese seafood restaurant, where the menu leans heavily on raw fish and whatever came off the boat. The mupa, a deep-water Mediterranean species most menus have never heard of, shows up here alongside prawns in season and handmade pasta with sauces that suggest someone's grandmother is involved. The table near the arte povera dresser at the back is the one to ask for.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A seafood-forward restaurant near the Expo Fiera area with the kind of pressed-tablecloth formality that tells you the fish will be serious. The kitchen leans on classic Ligurian technique, so expect grilled whole fish, warm seafood salad, and fish braised with potatoes and Taggiasche olives rather than anything trying to surprise you. Meat exists on the menu, quietly, for the one person at the table who always orders it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant