Ironside Fish & Oyster

Ironside Fish & Oyster Restaurant Review:

About the restaurant: Little Italy's Ironside Fish & Oyster honors the seaport city's history as the tuna capitol of the U.S. with its seafood-centric menu that changes twice daily, depending on fresh catch. The 1920s warehouse was smartly redesigned. Imbibers enjoy the showpiece, towering, 14-foot steel bar trellis and an extensive drinks menu of clever cocktails, fortified wines, digestifs and even cocktails-on-the-half-shell served with single oysters. Ironside is a sum of its moving parts with its communal tables, in-house bakery, lobster-filled tank, sprawling raw bar, exhibition kitchen and buttoned-up servers.

Food & Drinks: A lit-up marquee announces the daily oysters, so start there, then order some Baja stone crab claws. We recommend the fresh apple and beet salad with Purple Haze goat cheese and the pork belly with roasted grape compote. A pretty fan of crisped skate lies on celery root purée, enlivened with the salty spell of caper berries; a tower of buttermilk chicken oysters arrives in oyster shells on a bed of salt. Fresh fish ranges from mahi mahi, wahoo and grouper to trout and whole rock cod. Chilled fudge and caramel comes with candied pink peppercorns for a flashy finish. Happy hour means $1 oysters and other specials.