I ate the best piece of fish of my life in a 12-seat restaurant in a fishing village on the coast of Portugal. The restaurant had no menu, no website, and no sign outside — just a wooden door propped open and the smell of grilling seafood drifting onto the street. The owner, a weathered man named Antonio, brought me a whole sea bass that had been caught that morning, grilled over charcoal with nothing but salt, garlic, and olive oil. The skin was crisp and smoky, the flesh was moist and sweet, and the simplicity of the preparation let the quality of the fish speak for itself. It cost 18 euros. I have eaten at Michelin-starred seafood restaurants in Tokyo, Barcelona, and Sydney, and none of them produced a dish that moved me more than that grilled sea bass in Cascais. The best seafood in the world is not found in fancy restaurants. It is found in places where the ocean is close, the fish is fresh, and the cooks know what they are doing.
Lisbon and Porto: Portugal's Seafood Treasure
Portugal has the highest per-capita fish consumption in Europe, and the quality of the seafood along its Atlantic coast is exceptional. In Lisbon, the Mercado da Ribeira (also known as the Time Out Market) offers a curated selection of the city's best restaurants and food stalls under one roof, including several excellent seafood vendors. Cervejaria Ramiro, a no-frills seafood house in the Intendente neighborhood, is a Lisbon institution that has been serving fresh seafood since 1956. There is no menu — the waiter recites the day's offerings, which might include live scarlet prawns from the Algarve, grilled dorado, steamed clams with garlic and cilantro, and a prego (steak sandwich) to finish. A meal for two with drinks costs about 80 to 120 euros, and the quality is consistently outstanding. Arrive before 7 p.m. to avoid a long wait — the restaurant does not take reservations.
Porto, Portugal's second city, has its own seafood traditions that are distinct from Lisbon's. The Francesinha, Porto's most famous dish, is not seafood (it is a layered sandwich with steak, ham, sausage, and cheese covered in a spicy tomato sauce), but the city's coastal suburbs of Matosinhos and Leça da Palmeira are home to some of the best seafood restaurants in Portugal. Restaurante Leça, in Matosinhos, is a family-run establishment that has been serving grilled fish since 1965. The house specialty is robalo (sea bass) grilled over charcoal, served with boiled potatoes and salad, for about 25 euros per kilogram. The restaurant is a 15-minute walk from the Matosinhos Sul metro station, and the beach is visible from the dining room. For a more upscale experience, Pedro Lemos in Vila Nova de Gaia (across the river from Porto) holds a Michelin star and serves creative seafood dishes like octopus with smoked paprika and black pudding for about 60 euros per person.
The Algarve, Portugal's southern coast, is the source of much of the country's finest seafood. The coastal town of Olhao, near Faro, has a daily fish market where you can buy fresh-caught fish and have it cooked at one of the restaurants surrounding the market. The process is simple: buy your fish at the market (a whole dorado costs about 10 to 15 euros per kilogram), carry it to a restaurant like Restaurante Rui or Aquasul, and they will grill it and serve it with potatoes, salad, and a carafe of local wine for a cooking charge of about 8 to 10 euros per person. The total cost — fish plus cooking — is about 20 to 25 euros per person for a meal that would cost three times as much in a restaurant. This is how the Portuguese eat seafood, and it is an experience that every visitor to the Algarve should have.
Tokyo's Tsukiji and Toyosu: The World's Fish Market
Tokyo's fish market — Tsukiji until 2018, now Toyosu — is the largest wholesale fish market in the world, handling over 2,000 tons of seafood per day. The inner wholesale market at Toyosu is not open to the public, but the outer market area has dozens of restaurants and stalls serving sushi, sashimi, and other seafood dishes made from fish that was auctioned at the market that morning. The quality of the fish at Toyosu is unmatched anywhere in the world — the tuna auction alone sees individual bluefin tuna sell for thousands of dollars, and the fish that ends up in the market restaurants is the freshest you will find anywhere.
For sushi, the most famous restaurant at the market is Sushi Dai, which has been operating since 1965 and consistently ranks among the top sushi restaurants in Tokyo. The omakase (chef's choice) set costs about 4,500 to 7,000 yen ($30 to $47) for 7 to 11 pieces of nigiri sushi, and the quality of the fish — particularly the tuna, sea urchin, and sweet shrimp — is extraordinary. The queue at Sushi Dai can be two to three hours during peak times, so arrive before 6 a.m. or after 2 p.m. for a shorter wait. For a less crowded alternative, Daiwa Sushi, a few stalls away, offers a similar omakase for about 4,000 to 5,000 yen with a shorter queue. Both restaurants are casual counter-service establishments — you sit at the counter, watch the chef prepare each piece in front of you, and eat it immediately.
Beyond the market, Tokyo has thousands of seafood restaurants at every price point. For high-end sushi, Sukiyabashi Jiro ($300 to $400 per person for omakase) and Saito ($250 to $350) are widely considered the best in the world, but reservations are extremely difficult to obtain and must be made months in advance through a hotel concierge or a Japanese booking service. For mid-range sushi, restaurants in the Ginza and Shinjuku neighborhoods offer excellent omakase for 5,000 to 10,000 yen ($33 to $67) per person. For casual seafood, the izakaya (Japanese pub) restaurants in the Tsukishima neighborhood specialize in monjayaki, a type of savory pancake loaded with seafood, and the yatai (street food stalls) in Fukuoka serve mentaiko (spicy cod roe) and grilled squid that are worth seeking out.
San Sebastian: Basque Country Seafood
San Sebastian, on the northern coast of Spain, is one of the great food cities of Europe, and its seafood is among the best on the continent. The city sits on the Bay of Biscay, one of the richest fishing grounds in Europe, and the local cuisine — Basque cuisine — is renowned for its simplicity, quality of ingredients, and technical precision. The city has more Michelin stars per capita than almost any other city in the world, but the best seafood experiences are often found in the pintxos bars of the old town, where small plates of grilled fish, cured seafood, and seafood-stuffed croquettes are served for 3 to 8 euros each.
La Cuchara de San Telmo, a pintxos bar in the old town, is famous for its txipirones (grilled baby squid) in ink sauce, which costs about 12 euros for a small plate. The squid is tender, smoky from the grill, and the ink sauce is rich and savory — it is one of the best seafood dishes I have eaten anywhere. Bar Nestor, another old town institution, serves a single type of fish each day — whatever was caught that morning — grilled over charcoal with nothing but salt and olive oil. The fish is sold by weight and costs about 8 to 12 euros per 100 grams. A 300-gram portion of turbot or sea bass, which is enough for one person, costs about 24 to 36 euros. The restaurant is small (about 12 seats) and does not take reservations, so arrive early — it opens at 1 p.m. for lunch and the fish sells out quickly.
For a splurge, Arzak (three Michelin stars, about 250 euros per person for a tasting menu) and Akelare (three Michelin stars, about 200 euros per person) are the pinnacle of Basque seafood cuisine. Both restaurants serve creative, technically accomplished dishes that Show local seafood in unexpected ways — Arzak's signature dish is a lobster with a smoked coral sauce, and Akelare serves a turbot cooked in seaweed with a shellfish emulsion. Reservations at both restaurants must be made months in advance. For a more accessible fine-dining experience, Kokotxa (one Michelin star, about 80 euros per person for a set menu) in the old town serves excellent seasonal seafood dishes in a relaxed, intimate setting.
Mumbai: India's Coastal Seafood Capital
Mumbai, on India's west coast, is the seafood capital of the subcontinent. The city's Koli fishing community — the original inhabitants of Mumbai — have been fishing the Arabian Sea for centuries, and their catch supplies the city's extraordinary seafood culture. The most iconic Mumbai seafood dish is the Bombay fish fry — a fillet of pomfret or surmai (kingfish) marinated in a spiced paste of turmeric, chili, garlic, and ginger, coated in semolina, and pan-fried until crisp. It is served with chutney and a soft bread roll called pav, and it costs about 150 to 250 rupees ($2 to $3) at beachside stalls in the Koliwada fishing villages.
For a sit-down seafood meal in Mumbai, Trishna (in the Fort area) and Gajalee (in Andheri) are the two most famous seafood restaurants. Trishna has been serving Mangalorean-style seafood since 1958, and its signature dishes include butter garlic crab (about 1,200 rupees or $14 for a whole crab), tandoori prawns (about 800 rupees or $10), and fish curry with appam (fermented rice pancakes). The restaurant is casual, noisy, and always busy — reservations are essential for dinner. Gajalee, in the northern suburb of Andheri, is known for its seafood thali (a platter of small dishes) and its Sol Kadhi (a pink drink made from kokum fruit and coconut milk, served as a palate cleanser). A seafood thali at Gajalee costs about 600 to 800 rupees ($7 to $10) and includes fish curry, fried fish, prawns, clams, rice, and bread.
The Sassoon Dock area in Colaba is Mumbai's oldest fish market and a fascinating place to visit even if you are not buying fish. The market is busiest at dawn, when the fishing boats return with the night's catch, and the auction floor is a chaotic, colorful scene of fishmongers, buyers, and Koli fishermen negotiating over baskets of pomfret, prawns, crabs, and squid. The area is being redeveloped, but the market still operates in its traditional form. Nearby, the street food stalls at Bademiya (behind the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel) serve grilled seafood kebabs and fish tikka from about 7 p.m. until well past midnight — a seekh kebab of fresh fish marinated in spices and grilled over charcoal costs about 100 rupees ($1.20) and is one of the best late-night meals in Mumbai.
Scandinavia: Nordic Seafood Traditions
Scandinavian seafood is defined by simplicity, seasonality, and a respect for the raw ingredient that borders on reverence. In Copenhagen, the Torvehallerne market (two glass halls near the Nørreport station) is the best place to sample Danish seafood. The market has several excellent fish stalls — Fiskerikajen is the standout — that serve smoked salmon, pickled herring, shrimp sandwiches (smørrebrød), and fresh oysters. A shrimp sandwich on Danish rye bread with mayonnaise, dill, and lemon costs about 60 Danish kroner ($9) and is one of the best quick meals in Copenhagen. For a sit-down experience, Kødbyens Fiskebar, in the Meatpacking District, serves creative seafood dishes like cured mackerel with horseradish and apple, and pan-seared turbot with cauliflower and brown butter, at about 200 to 300 kroner ($30 to $45) per person.
In Bergen, Norway, the fish market on the harbor (Fisketorget) has been operating since the 1200s and is one of the oldest continuously operating fish markets in Europe. The market sells fresh salmon, cod, halibut, king crab, and whale meat (which is controversial but widely available in Norway). A whale steak sandwich costs about 100 Norwegian kroner ($10), and a bowl of fish soup with salmon, shrimp, and mussels costs about 130 kroner ($13). For a more upscale experience, the restaurant Enhjørningen (the Unicorn) at the Bryggen wharf serves traditional Norwegian fish dishes — stockfish (dried cod) with potatoes and bacon, and fish balls in white sauce — in a 400-year-old building. A meal costs about 300 to 400 kroner ($30 to $40) per person.
Sweden's west coast, particularly the Bohuslan region north of Gothenburg, is famous for its shellfish. The islands of the archipelago are dotted with small fishing villages that serve langoustines (Norway lobster), oysters, and mussels harvested from the cold, clean waters of the Skagerrak. The langoustine season runs from September to April, and the shellfish are typically served simply — boiled in seawater with dill, and eaten with mayonnaise and bread. A langoustine lunch at a harborside restaurant costs about 300 to 500 Swedish kronor ($30 to $50) per person. The oysters from the west coast, particularly from the Grebbestad area, are considered among the finest in Europe and are served raw with lemon and shallot vinegar.
Sustainability: Choosing Seafood Responsibly
Enjoying seafood while traveling comes with a responsibility to choose sustainably. Overfishing has depleted many of the world's fish stocks, and some popular species — Atlantic bluefin tuna, Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, and shark — are so severely overfished that they should be avoided entirely. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program (seafoodwatch.org) provides a simple red/yellow/green rating system for common seafood species, and their free app lets you check the sustainability of any fish by name. Green-rated species are abundant and caught or farmed responsibly. Red-rated species are overfished or caught in ways that harm the environment.
When eating seafood in a foreign country, ask where the fish comes from. Local, seasonal catch from small-scale fisheries is almost always more sustainable than imported or farmed species. In Portugal, the fish at the market is almost entirely local and seasonal. In Japan, the seafood at Tsukiji is sourced from waters around Japan (though some species, like bluefin tuna, are overfished globally). In Southeast Asia, the shrimp farming industry has caused extensive environmental damage to mangrove forests — if you eat shrimp, look for certified sustainable options from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). In the Mediterranean, avoid bluefin tuna and choose sardines, anchovies, and mussels instead — these smaller species are abundant, low on the food chain, and far more sustainable.
Farmed seafood is not inherently unsustainable. Well-managed aquaculture operations — particularly those raising bivalves (oysters, mussels, clams) and seaweed — can actually benefit the environment by filtering water and providing habitat. Oyster farming in France, mussel farming in New Zealand, and seaweed farming in Norway are all examples of sustainable aquaculture. The key is to look for certification labels — the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for wild-caught seafood and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) for farmed seafood — and to ask questions when certification labels are absent. A restaurant that cannot tell you where its fish comes from is probably not paying attention to sustainability.
