The Best Seafood in the United States

Scotty Simpson's is a nautical-themed corner fish fry in Brightmoor that has apparently never been told the decor trend moved on, and that's fine by everyone in the booths. You order the cod in its light house batter with fries, slaw, tartar sauce, and soft dinner rolls, and the fish flakes apart in big, tidy pieces. The fried frog legs are thick enough to need a second opinion, and the pie goes fast, so ask early.

A cioppino so loaded with Dungeness crab, mussels, scallops, and clams that the bowl barely closes is the reason most people show up to this old-school North Beach seafood house. The parklet on Green Street buzzes like the neighborhood's living room, and the Boston clam chowder travels home in quart containers for those who plan ahead. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top seafood restaurants.

The location near the airport is the whole point: fish flown in from both coasts lands here before it lands anywhere else in Tulsa. White River has been a market and old-school lunch counter forever, and you order at the counter for oysters, frog legs, and a slice of pie to finish. The industrial surroundings are a feature, not a bug, and the regulars know it.

Ray's Cafe is the casual upstairs sibling of Ray's Boathouse, a seafood spot on Shilshole Bay where the view does a good share of the work. Expect grilled salmon, fish and chips, and the kind of plate that would also be at home at a gala, only with a lower dress code and a lower bill. It's the move for a sunset dessert, and it carries three AAA diamonds.

Tanta is a big, lively Peruvian restaurant in River North, where the menu treats Peru's Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish influences like a family reunion that went well. That means pork fried rice crowned with a shrimp omelet, and nigiri topped with wagyu and a quail egg, so sushi and steak finally stop pretending they don't know each other. Happy hour pulls in regulars with $10 drinks and similarly gentle food prices.

Hot yeast rolls and Gruyère corn bread arrive before you've fully decided what Gulf Coast seafood restaurant means in Houston in 2025. Chef Bryan Caswell, long tied to the city's coastal cuisine identity, is behind Latuli, a seafood-forward dining room where roasted grouper comes with housemade corn pudding and wagyu barbacoa gets crowned with pear and jalapeño. The peach cobbler à la mode closes things out, which is, honestly, the correct order of operations.

Deanie's on Hayne is a casual, family-run seafood house out in the Lakeview-adjacent stretch, far from any Bourbon Street souvenir shop with a daiquiri machine. The platters arrive heaped with fried shrimp, catfish, stuffed crab, and oyster patties, and they're built for sharing, though nobody will fault you for not. The daily specials run around twenty dollars. On Thursdays, the original owner, Maw Maw Deanie, sometimes stops by your table to chat.

Dockside is a counter-service seafood joint wedged beside the Jax Beach boat ramp, where you order at the window, eat with plastic forks, and wash it down with cheap bottled beer. Locals come for catches that were recently somewhere else, in combo baskets of shrimp, scallops, or crab cakes, blackened, grilled, or fried. The screened-in patio is the move, mostly because the seagulls out there have notions about your lunch.

Three levels of Pacific views in La Jolla, each one feeling like a slightly different restaurant. George's at the Cove is a seafood institution that's been around forever, and the rooftop Ocean Terrace draws the kind of crowd that shows up before sunset and stays well past it. The menu runs toward fresh, coastal-California seafood, and the setting does a lot of the heavy lifting, which at this address is entirely fair.

Sliders is a Neptune Beach seafood shack that has been feeding sandy-footed locals since the '80s, and it still has a patio with a putt-putt green, which tells you how seriously the afternoon is meant to be taken. Expect raw oysters, blackened Mayport shrimp, and fried baskets with hushpuppies on the side. Weekend Bloody Marys arrive crowned with a colossal fried shrimp, so garnish is more of a suggestion.

A retro fish camp on Sullivans Island where the Southern tradition of fried seafood in baskets still anchors the menu, though the kitchen under chef Jason Stanhope has broadened out into local fish crudo, fresh catch, and oysters by the plate. The beverage list leans heavily on crisp whites and tropical cocktails, which makes stopping in for a drink and a dozen oysters an entirely reasonable Tuesday-afternoon decision.

There is no pool, no lake, not even a decorative fountain at this roadside seafood spot off Arnold Drive, which makes the name either a joke or a flex. White walls, a dog-friendly patio, and a long view of the Sonoma hills set the tone for a menu that plays casual but thinks clearly, with a tuna bowl leaning poke and a fried cod sandwich doing polished things to a fast-food classic. The wine list is longer than you'd expect from a place you can bring your dog to.

Ironside is a nautical-kitsch seafood restaurant on India Street, with portholes on the walls, anchor hooks for your jacket, and garage doors that open when San Diego's weather does its one trick. The raw bar is the draw, including a platter built for eight to ten people that the menu calls something unprintable here. Weekday happy hour puts oysters at a dollar apiece, which makes 3 p.m. a surprisingly full house.

A poke bowl shop in Edmonds where the fish rotates based on what's actually fresh, because the team sources some of it directly from the Honolulu Fish Auction. Seasonings are kept deliberately light so the fish does the talking, which is either obvious or radical depending on where you've been eating poke lately. Hawaiian sides like mac salad round things out, but this is unapologetically a fish place.

This is a casual White Center seafood-boil joint where Viet-Cajun means you're handed a bib and no one judges the state of your sleeves. Seafood is sold by the pound, from Dungeness crab to signal crawfish in season, then tossed in garlic butter or the house Tango sauce, which has a tamarind tang. Bring a group, since the table gets loud and the napkin supply is a fiction. Prices run friendly, and dress for splatter.

Half Shell is a Tom Douglas seafood restaurant in the old Etta's space on Western Ave, back to oysters after a short barbecue phase nobody asked for. Local oyster farms rotate through, and the menu runs from king salmon to a caviar service for people who've had a good quarter. The happy hour shrimp nugget slider on a pull-apart roll is the move for everyone else.

A San Francisco fish market that planted a second flag inside Proof Lab Beer Garden in Mill Valley, where the obvious move after a Marin hike is a fish taco. The fried rockfish comes out of the oil crackling, buried under a carrot habanero salsa that uses sweetness and acid to dial back the heat rather than just announce it. Order at the counter, find a sunny spot, and let the endorphins from the trail and the chile sort themselves out.

Kingfisher is a casual, walk-in-only seafood spot on Bainbridge Island, which is a ferry ride away and therefore already a small commitment. It's the looser, cheaper follow-up to Seabird, with the same wood fire, local sourcing, and raw bar, minus the reservations and most of the fuss. Ask for a spoon if the ceviche shows up, since drinking the leftover broth is considered good manners here.

La Loba is the restaurant in the 1 Hotel, serving Catalan small plates built mostly around seafood, which is a very Pacific Northwest thing to do with a Barcelona childhood. The dishes are rustic at heart with a few modernist tricks, like an open-faced montadito topped with cured salmon. The room is dressed up and so is the clientele, and Eater lists it among Seattle's best seafood restaurants. Wear the good shoes.

Sea turtles surface in the water a few feet from your table while you work through a menu that skews lighter than most oceanfront spots, with vegan and gluten-free options alongside fish sourced close to home. Mala is a Hawaiian seafood restaurant right on the Lahaina waterfront, and brunch draws a loyal crowd for eggs Benedict done several ways, including one with wasabi hollandaise that sounds like a dare and isn't.

The Garrison is a seafood restaurant in Ballard from the people behind Le Coin, built around local clams and oysters. The clams arrive in a brothy cured lemon butter, which comes with grilled bread so that no one has to resort to drinking from the bowl in public. The crab puff pastry is a flaky, delicate thing, and the oysters have been known to make strangers at the next table speak up. Eater put it on its Seattle seafood list.

A seafood counter in downtown Greenville where the oysters come clean and release easily off the shell. The chef's nod to local pride shows up in the po' boy, dressed with Duke's mayo, which got its start right here in town. Smoked fish dip and a tight list of high-acid whites fill out a lunch that moves fast, since the room runs first-come, first-served. Keep an eye out for the seasonal all-you-can-eat oyster roasts with live music on Sunday afternoons.

Crudo is a Baja-leaning seafood spot on India Street where the counter is laid out like a sushi bar, except the fish is wearing lime instead of soy. Order a tower of oysters and clams, then work through the aguachiles and tostadas, or sit on the roomy patio and let the tacos arrive in their own time. Finish with guava cheesecake and a carajillo, which counts as dessert and a second wind.

GoodMart is a casual Ballard seafood spot built for a sit-down lunch, which is a dying art that apparently never got the memo. Each fish gets its own preparation, served with salad and rice, so there's no assembling a meal from a dozen small plates. Black cod comes glazed in apple miso, ling cod wears a panko crust, and the playlist is good enough that you may find yourself quietly mouthing along.

Hai Cang is a Vietnamese-Chinese seafood house on Bellaire Boulevard where the platters of crab, lobster, and noodles arrive at a scale better suited to a group than a date. The lobster comes wok-fried in dry spices and the Dungeness is fire-red, so napkins are less a courtesy than a survival strategy. Bring a crowd, because the lazy susan has to earn its keep.

Pal's is a seafood restaurant tucked against a yacht club at the far end of Hayden Island, which means you get the marina views without the dock fees or the mildew. Oyster platters and seafood towers sit alongside calamari nachos, a combination that sounds like a dare and goes down easily. It's a casual, convivial spot, best timed so the sun drops into the Columbia while a paloma is in your hand.

This is a small oyster bar with an outsized patio, parked a few steps from the Wharf's fish market, where the barge bobs and the air does some of the marketing. It's run by the oyster growers whose name is on the door, so the bivalves have a short commute. Weekday happy hour from 4 to 6 puts oysters at $2 and clams at $1.50, which tourists and locals both do the math on.

Enrique Olvera's Casamata group opened this seafood-forward Mexican restaurant in a space that has been an Olvera address before, which is either poetic or just convenient real estate. Chef Chuy Cervantes runs the kitchen, sending out mariscos that make a strong case for the coastal zip code: local rockfish ceviche, Dungeness crab tostada with furikake, oysters with turnip salsa. Wine, beer, and cocktails round it out.

A raw bar and seafood bistro in Back Bay where the tinned fish wall alone could occupy you for an embarrassing amount of time before you've even looked at the menu. The kitchen's approach to classics has range, from lobster rolls to raw preparations to globally inflected dishes. Caviar service is on the menu and taken seriously enough that Boston Magazine noticed. The room runs indulgent without trying to make a statement about it.

Floor-to-ceiling windows on the 15th floor of Talking Stick Resort frame 360-degree views of the Salt River valley, best caught as the McDowell Mountains go gold at dusk. This is a splurge-night-out seafood and steakhouse, the kind where you arrive early to claim a spot on the deck and watch hawks work the thermals. The lounge lets you keep the view without committing to the full tab.

Rope and weathered wood set the nautical tone at this casual seafood restaurant a block from the water in downtown Biloxi. The menu casts wide, running from fresh catch and fried oysters to steaks and pasta, with Asian sticky ribs turning up as a crowd-pleasing starter. Asparagus au gratin is the kind of side dish that ends arguments. Weekend brunch runs both Saturday and Sunday for anyone easing into the Gulf Coast morning slowly.

The lobster roll comes on a bao bun, which tells you pretty much everything about what this casual seafood spot near Fenway is up to. Fresh shellfish arrives daily, and the kitchen folds in Asian flavors in ways that feel considered rather than gimmicky. Oysters finished with kimchi ice are a recurring reason to show up. It draws a crowd before and after games, but the food holds up without the excuse.