RFK Cuisine · Seafood · Boston
Best Seafood Restaurants in Boston 2026
Seafood · Boston · 6 rooms ranked · Updated June 2026
Compiled by the Restaurants for Kings editorial team · Published June 20, 2026 · Updated June 20, 2026
An oyster pulled from Duxbury Bay before dawn can be on ice at a Back Bay counter by lunch, and that short distance is the whole argument for eating seafood in Boston rather than anywhere else on the East Coast. The city's best rooms compete not on invention but on freshness and restraint: Michael Serpa shucks Island Creeks at a forty-seat oyster bar he opened after years at Neptune; Kathy Sidell built a temple to tinned fish and fried lobster on Dartmouth Street; and in a quiet room in the Leather District, Tim Cushman turns Hokkaido uni and local bluefin into a twenty-course omakase that travels with the world's best. Ranked on the cooking, the room and what the bill buys, with the plate to order at each.
1.Select Oyster Bar
The chef's oyster bar from Neptune's old hand, 50 seats on Gloucester Street; book it for the best raw bar in Back Bay.
Michael Serpa ran the counter at the North End's no-reservations Neptune Oyster before opening Select at 50 Gloucester Street in 2015, and his fifty-seat room is the city's most knowing raw bar. The oysters are sorted by provenance and salinity — Island Creek, Duxbury, Wellfleet — and shucked to order, and the kitchen turns out crudo, a clean lobster roll, grilled whole fish and a seafood tower without a single tired note. The room is narrow, modern and loud in a good way, the antidote to the white-tablecloth seafood houses of an earlier Boston. Book through Resy a week or two out, or take a stool at the bar on a weeknight. Order the oyster flight, a crudo, and whatever fish came in that morning.
Resy, a week or two out; the oyster flight, a crudo, the daily whole fish.
2.Saltie Girl
Kathy Sidell's tinned-fish and fried-lobster bar on Dartmouth Street; go for the most fun raw bar in the city.
Kathy Sidell opened Saltie Girl on Dartmouth Street in Back Bay as a small, jewel-box seafood bar, and it has since grown a Los Angeles outpost and a national following without losing the plot. The menu runs from raw — oysters, towers, torched salmon belly — to a deep, serious list of imported conservas served with butter and bread, to the dish everyone photographs: fried lobster on a waffle. It is a tight, busy room with a long marble bar, and part of the floor stays open for walk-ins, so a short wait is normal on a Friday. Come hungry and graze: a few oysters, a tin of Spanish mussels, the fried lobster to split. Book ahead online for a table, or take your chances at the bar.
Reserve online or walk in to the bar; oysters, a tin of conservas, the fried lobster and waffle.
3.Ostra
The marble-and-leather dress-up seafood room by the Public Garden; book it for an anniversary built on whole fish.
Ostra sits a few steps from the Public Garden on Huntington Avenue, the seafood flagship of Jamie Mammano's Columbus Hospitality group, and it is the room you book when the seafood dinner needs to be an occasion. The kitchen works in a Mediterranean register — branzino and dorade grilled whole and filleted tableside, a luxe seafood tower, crudo cut clean, a saffron-scented bouillabaisse — and the marble, leather and low light make it the most polished fish room in the city. Service is jacket-friendly and unhurried, the wine list deep in coastal whites. This is the splurge on the list: plan on $120 and up before wine, and order a whole fish for two. Reserve through OpenTable a week or more ahead, longer on a weekend.
OpenTable, a week-plus ahead; the tower to start, a whole branzino carved tableside.
4.Waypoint
Michael Scelfo's wood-fired seafood room near Harvard Square; go for dollar oysters and the chopped-clam pizza.
Cross the river to Harvard Square and Michael Scelfo's Waypoint is the most interesting seafood cooking in Cambridge, a dim, brick-walled room built around a wood fire. The hooks are unorthodox and they work: a chopped-clam pizza that has become the chef's signature, charred octopus, smoked-fish toasts, crudos with real heat, and a happy hour of dollar oysters that fills the bar early. It is the value play near the top of this list — figure $60 to $95 a head — and the cooking has more swagger than the polished rooms across the river. Book through Resy for dinner, or arrive at opening for the oyster deal. Lead with the chopped-clam pizza and a dozen oysters, then let the fire do the rest.
Resy for dinner, or walk in for dollar oysters at the bar; the chopped-clam pizza, the octopus.
5.Uni
Ken Oringer's late-night izakaya for the best raw seafood in Boston; book it for A5 nigiri and a deep sake list.
Ken Oringer's Uni began as a small sashimi counter inside the Eliot Hotel and grew into a full izakaya, with James Beard winner Tony Messina running the kitchen. The reason it earns a place on a seafood list is the raw program: spoons of Hokkaido uni, A5 wagyu nigiri, hamachi and bluefin cut with precision, and small hot plates built around fish and shellfish. The room is dark and buzzing, the sake list one of the deepest in New England, and it runs later than almost anywhere else on this list. It is a special-occasion price once the nigiri adds up, so come for the raw bar and the sake rather than a quiet dinner. Reserve through Resy and let the counter guide the order.
Resy, ahead on weekends; the uni spoon, A5 wagyu nigiri, a flight of sake.
6.O Ya
The James Beard omakase that put Boston on the sushi map; fly in once for twenty courses in the Leather District.
Tim and Nancy Cushman's O Ya hides behind an unmarked door in the Leather District, and it is the most ambitious seafood meal in the city — a twenty-odd-course omakase that earned Tim Cushman a James Beard award and a national reputation. The cooking is sushi inflected with global technique: the famous foie gras nigiri with balsamic and black pepper, a Kumamoto oyster topped with watermelon pearls and mignonette, bluefin and uni handled with reverence. It is tiny, expensive and worth it for the right occasion — expect well past $200 a head before sake. This is not a casual raw bar; it is a destination meal you plan around. Book the counter weeks ahead through the restaurant and surrender to the menu.
Reserve weeks ahead, counter omakase; the foie gras nigiri, the Kumamoto with watermelon pearls.
How Boston eats seafood
Boston's seafood advantage is geography. The boats land at the Fish Pier and on the South Shore, and the oysters come from named beds an hour south — Island Creek in Duxbury, the Wellfleets out on the Cape — so the city's best kitchens compete on freshness and how little they do to it. The split that matters is old Boston versus new: the white-tablecloth chowder-and-scrod houses that defined the city for a century, and the chef-driven oyster bars and raw rooms — Select, Saltie Girl, Waypoint — that took over in the last decade. Both still exist; this list favors the kitchens cooking for a diner who knows the difference between a Duxbury and a Wellfleet.
Season and calendar matter more than visitors expect. Oysters are at their best in the colder months, the patios fill from May, and graduation week in May and early June books out the top tables across Back Bay and Cambridge. Tipping runs the American 18 to 20 percent. Reservations on the chef rooms open one to four weeks out on Resy and OpenTable; the famous holdout is the North End's Neptune Oyster, which still takes no reservations and runs a real wait. For everything beyond fish, the Boston dining guide maps the city by neighborhood and occasion.
Where not to look for it
Skip these for serious seafood
The Faneuil Hall and waterfront tourist chowder stops. The rooms ringing Quincy Market and the cruise terminal trade on the view and the souvenir-grade chowder, not the kitchen. Walk to Select or take the short ride to Waypoint instead.
O Ya or Uni for a casual, cheap raw bar. These are destination-priced rooms that push past $200 a head fast. When you want a dozen oysters and a glass of Muscadet without the ceremony, point yourself at Select Oyster Bar, Saltie Girl, or Waypoint's happy hour.
Frequently asked
What is the best seafood restaurant in Boston?
For a chef-driven oyster bar, Select Oyster Bar on Gloucester Street in Back Bay is the pick, run by Michael Serpa, who spent years behind the counter at the North End's Neptune Oyster before opening his own room. For refined whole-fish cooking, Ostra near the Public Garden is the dress-up choice; for raw fish at the highest level, O Ya in the Leather District is the omakase that put Boston on the international sushi map. Choose by whether you want oysters, a whole branzino, or twenty courses of sushi.
Where do you eat the best oysters in Boston?
Boston's oysters come from Duxbury, Wellfleet, Island Creek and the rest of the Massachusetts coast, often shucked within a day of the catch. Select Oyster Bar runs the deepest, most knowledgeable raw bar in Back Bay, and Saltie Girl on Dartmouth Street pairs oysters with one of the best tinned-seafood lists in the country. For dollar oysters during happy hour, Waypoint near Harvard Square is the value play. Ask for what landed that morning.
How much does a seafood dinner in Boston cost?
A raw bar and a couple of plates at Select Oyster Bar or Saltie Girl runs roughly $70 to $110 per person before wine. Ostra is the splurge, closer to $120 and up for whole fish and a tower. Waypoint near Harvard Square sits lower, around $60 to $95 a head. At the top, O Ya's omakase and Uni's tasting push well past $200, so reserve those for an occasion and order the raw bar elsewhere when you want value.
Which Boston seafood restaurant is best for a special occasion?
Ostra, the marble-and-leather room on the edge of the Public Garden, is the dress-up seafood dinner, built around whole fish and a tower. For a once-a-year raw-fish blowout, O Ya's twenty-course omakase in the Leather District is the city's most ambitious seafood meal, and Uni's Back Bay counter is the place for A5 wagyu nigiri and a deep sake list. Book any of the three weeks ahead, especially on a weekend.
Do Boston seafood restaurants take reservations?
Most of the rooms on this list do. Select Oyster Bar, Ostra, Waypoint, Uni and O Ya all take reservations through Resy or OpenTable, and the top tables fill a week or two out in summer and during graduation season. Saltie Girl keeps part of its room for walk-ins, so a short wait at the bar is common on weekends. For the famously no-reservations Neptune Oyster in the North End, expect a real line at peak times.
More seafood, by city
More from RFK
Browse the full Boston dining guide, compare the global picks in the best seafood restaurants worldwide, plan a Boston anniversary dinner at Ostra, find an impress-the-client table at Uni, or open the full RFK cuisine index.
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