What makes a coastal lobster experience worth the trip?

There’s this one place that’s a 3 hour drive from where I live, and every now and then I get in the car and go for a bowl of the best chowder in the country. I’d read somewhere that it was really good, and someone had described it so well that I was willing to sit in crawling traffic on the road to get there. That’s coastal seafood for you.

Most coastal dining experiences however are simply rather average. Yes they have great views of the sea. Yes they have very fresh seafood. But in the end they are simply very average restaurants. The really great seafood restaurants are ones that have something special about them. And for the most part this something special is not what you would expect.

1. Freshness is table stakes, not a selling point.

First, don’t be impressed by claims of ‘fresh produce’. Freshness is table stakes for seafood restaurants along the coast, so the claims of fresh produce will be par for the course. If the only selling point of a seafood restaurant is that they use fresh produce then it’s probably best to keep driving to the next town. The floor of freshness is the minimum that any half-decent seafood restaurant must deliver.

Freshness is given on the coast, but proximity to the fishery, to know which boat caught the fish of the day, to have good relationships with the fishermen who catch the seafood for the restaurant, that’s what makes a good lobster experience superior to the rest of the restaurants. For starters, the lobster tastes better. It’s sweeter, the flesh has a better texture, and it hasn’t been sitting in a cold storage room for days waiting to be transported to a restaurant far, far away. Instead, it’s been sitting in a tank at the restaurant, waiting to be cooked. And it’s been treated with care along the way.

You can literally feel the difference as you crack open the shell. I know it sounds a bit precious but it’s true.

Does setting actually change the flavor?

Yes, that’s going to elicit some eye-rolling. For the vast majority of diners, dining out is a completely separate experience to the physical space of the restaurant. So long as the restaurant isn’t falling down around them, the windows haven’t been boarded up and there are no visible signs of pest problems then the setting of a restaurant is largely irrelevant. For most restaurants the setting will not impact the flavor of the food that they serve.

The real reason people are drawn back to these types of restaurants again and again, I believe, is because of a combination of factors that have been missing from so many other dining experiences. There is something very special about sitting down to a plate of the freshest seafood possible, while at the same time being able to feel and watch the water move. The smell of salt in the air, the sound of the rigging of the masts of the boats in the distance, all of these things combine to make for a very special experience, one that can be found in many restaurants around the country, but not in coastal seafood restaurants.

(But this creates another problem – once you have eaten at a really great seafood restaurant, every other seafood restaurant will seem to be of a much lower standard. This is a real problem – it is a great problem to have, but it is a problem nonetheless.)

When traveling along Western Australia’s coast you may want to stop off for a seafood meal. The lobster cave at Cervantes is a seafood restaurant to remember. The food is worth a long drive and the experience is seriously taken by the staff and owners. Booking ahead is highly recommended. The fresh seafood restaurant is above the Cervantes General Store and it is within easy walking distance.

What to actually look for when you’re planning a seafood stop

After ambiance and freshness, the next thing to consider are a few key things to check out before you decide to sit down for a meal of seafood.

• Does the menu change with the season? Static menus at seafood restaurants are a quiet red flag.
• Can the staff tell you where the lobster came from? If they look confused by the question, so will your meal.
• Is there a queue, or locals eating there on a Tuesday? Both are good signs.
• Does the place smell like the ocean, or does it smell like old fryer oil? You know the difference.

Types of seafood restaurants along a coastline

Type of spot	What it usually offers	Worth the detour?
Tourist strip restaurant	Consistent, inoffensive, predictable menu	Only if you’re already there
Working wharf kiosk	Incredibly fresh, zero frills, cash only probably	Almost always yes
Regional destination restaurant	Strong local sourcing, real culinary intention	Plan your trip around it
Holiday town seafood shack	Hit or miss, but when it hits, it hits hard	Ask the locals first

The thing people consistently get wrong about lobster

I have a pet hate here. Fresh seafood is the bare minimum that any decent restaurant should be able to offer. The real problem starts when restaurants treat lobsters as nothing more than a vehicle for elaborate sauces and other avant-garde methods and ingredients that the chef is using to show off his skills. The best lobster I have ever had was simply cooked. I mean split and grilled for a start, then a splash of vinegar added to bring out the flavors, followed by some fatty bits to provide contrast to the sweet flesh of the lobster, then a slice of lemon and finally a dollop of good quality butter. That’s it. Seriously.

You can keep adding more to a dish like this but at a point it is just adding. The secret is to start with something good enough and then just hold back. That is to say, don’t add things unless they actually belong.

However, I must admit that I have recently had an exceptional lobster dish that featured a smoked kelp butter. In retrospect, perhaps I was too harsh in my earlier assessment of lobster dishes that feature added ingredients, as long as they are added in a meaningful way. However, I would still argue that only the best ingredients should be added to a simple cooked lobster dish, and that only ingredients that actually belong to the dish should be used.

Before you go

When deciding where to head for your seafood dinner research the seasonal seafood catch to ensure you are eating the freshest seasonal produce and avoid eating frozen seafood that has traveled from far and wide. In Western Australia the peak season for rock lobster is around August/September. This will only take you 5 minutes to research but will be worth so much more when you are enjoying your seafood dinner.

So when you are on a coastline and there are lots of seafood restaurants, then drive a bit further until you find one that is really proud of its fresh produce. Because, as I said, the fact that they have fresh produce is the minimum that a restaurant should have.

Not a hard question, when you put it that way.