From sea bass belly 'bacon' to herring milkshakes with anchovy and walnut, these restaurants offer a distinct perspective on seafood.
Seafood has long signalled luxury. Athenian epicures called oysters 'the gastronomic prelude' to dinner, while in Ancient Rome, gourmands compared sole to partridge and sturgeon to peacock, making the fruits of the sea the centrepieces of their feasts.
Still today, ingredients like turbot and langoustine may be the most anticipated moment of any meal, but more humble seafood traditions – such as sardine skewers at beach bars along the coast of Málaga in southern Spain, or whole tilapia barbecued on the streets of Bangkok – are now given a voice on fine-dining tables.
As seafood cooking is so often a la minute, chefs who specialise in seafood often leave nowhere to hide. Whether relying on contemporary apparatus like water baths or applying ancestral techniques such as slow-cooking over low embers, salt-curing and smoking, creating seafood showstoppers is the aim of most great chefs. The experiential heights of seafood are often found in omakases conducted by sushi masters, or singularly brilliant pieces of cookery – like the turbot at Elkano or the red prawns at Extebarri – but there are also chefs offering a new perspective on seafood altogether.
Saint Peter, Sydney
Josh Niland has singlehandedly changed the way chefs see fish. His gill-to-fin approach means applying cooking techniques usually found in meat dishes to fish: dry-aging, curing for charcuterie and making use of fish offal. At Saint Peter, the restaurant he opened in 2016 at just 27 years old, Niland's imaginative thinking shines. The current menu features six-day, dry-aged John Dory with stone fruit, Barletta onion and potato doughnut; southern calamari and yellowfin tuna 'nduja; and a sweet ending that uses yellowfin tuna bone marrow in a fudge.
Aponiente, El Puerto de Santa María
Ángel León is on a mission to radically redefine seafood. Aponiente's menu centres around transforming unlikely ingredients from the sea, constructing a marine larder from ingredients like sea honey (extracted from a grass-like sea plant called ruppia maritima), sea worms, bacon made from sea bass belly, and cheese made from 'marine milk', – every single dish, desserts included, is constructed around local aquatic life. A meal in the dining room of a 19th century tide mill consists of boundary rethinking dishes such as hake collagen prepared as noodles, mackerel sobrasada and plankton tarte tatin.
La Marine, L'Herbaudière
Located on a tidal island on France's Atlantic coast, arriving at the dramatic setting sets the tone for a restaurant steeped in legend. Seafood-centric cooking is now common in French fine dining – celebrated by chefs like Bruno Verjus, Hugo Roellinger and Christophe Coutanceau – but Alexandre Couillon pioneered the approach at La Marine. Dishes are simple but striking in their precision and clarity, with dishes including charcoal-grilled mackerel with candied beetroot and 'retour de pêche', meaning 'a return from fishing', with a range of the seasonal catch assembled over a rockfish broth.
Uliassi, Senigallia
In the Italian coastal town of Senigallia, Mauro Uliassi is reimagining the contours of Italian cuisine and seafood cookery. The current menu features original flavour combinations, like herring milkshake with anchovy, walnut and hops, or razor clams prepared with peach blossoms, celery and Siltimur pepper oil. Guests can also order a classics menu with evocative dishes such as smoked spaghetti with clams and roasted datterini tomatoes, a menu mainstay since 2008, while the restaurant's iconic Ossobuco alla Marinara – first introduced in 2018 as what Uliassi calls an "exercise in gastronomic thinking". Signifying Uliassi's pursuit of a deeper dialogue between land and sea, this Lombardan classic is emulsified with salt cod tripe and the veal shanks cooked in clam water.
Jordnær, Copenhagen
Chef Eric Vildgaard's forensic obsession with sourcing pristine marine products helped Jordnær reach No.56 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 list. No meat appears on the menu at this suburban hotel-turned-restaurant. Blending Japanese and Nordic techniques, Vildgaard's burly, tattoo-covered appearance belies his ethereal touch. Unlike many other top chefs in the city, Vildgaard favours purity and freshness over fermentation and intensity, typified in dishes like takoyaki layered with sea urchin and caviar, and Frøya langoustine grilled over Binchotan with sakura and red shiso beurre blanc.
Willem Hiele, Ostend
Located in a striking brutalist building, Willem Hiele's eponymous restaurant – ranked No.62 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 – celebrates the rich seafood cookery of Belgium's overlooked coast. Growing up in Ostend – a seaside town once home to Marvin Gaye, where fishermen still harvest shrimp on horseback – Hiele brings sharp originality to local tradition. His Chaim Soutine-inspired carpaccio features dried and smoked fallen figs with sardine, alongside a floral-shaped sardine and tomato tart. The cooking is more than theatrical presentation, though. Observable from the dining room is a whole turbot cooked on an outside wood grill, covered with a lid and seawater-soaked jute sacks to steam and smoke it at the same time. The fish is then precisely dissected before being served to each guest as a single fillet with a golden, emulsified sauce made from the bones.
Holbox, Los Angeles
Located inside the Mercado La Paloma, a low-key foodhall, self-taught chef Gilberto Cetina has charted a new pathway for seafood tacos in Los Angeles. Cetina spent the first five years of his life in Telchac Puerto, a small fishing village in Yucatán, before moving to South LA. His menu reflects both a deep bond with the sea and a vision for refining traditional Mexican mariscos cookery. Working with fishermen who use the ikejime method and sourcing pristine Californian produce, Cetina creates dishes like kampachi taco inspired by the smoked marlin versions popular in Baja California, raw Kauai shrimp aguachile, and a ceviche of scallop and Santa Barbara sea urchin.
Sorn, Bangkok
Showcasing the coastal cuisine of Thailand's 14 southern regions is the name of the game at the Bangkok restaurant at No.16 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 list – and while meat makes a small appearance, chef Supaksorn 'Ice' Jongsiri has set a new standard for seafood cookery in Thai fine dining. A classic Phuket squid dish is reimagined as an Andaman squid skewer, mantled in its goth-black ink, stuffed with lobster and aubergine, and topped with pickled chilli rings. Hand-caught abalone is brightened with young mangosteen, green mango, hot tai seaweed and mint, and a raw seafood plate of blue crab, snail and rainbow lobster is as fresh as it gets. Sorn's signature bite is a blue crab claw topped with blistering chilli paste and the briny funk of mud crab roe.
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