Pearl Oyster Bar
Last week we took an out-of-town guest to Pearl Oyster Bar. Pearl Oyster is a tiny restaurant in the West Village with delicious seafood. It is a perfect spot to take guests. It is pricier than our usual restaurants so we save it for special occasions. The food is fabulous, however, and well worth the higher price.
The menu consists almost entirely of seafood. All of the seafood is incredibly fresh, and they have local catch specials that vary every day. There are are few things to keep in mind if you plan on dining here, however. One is that the restaurant is tiny. It has about 12 two-top tables that can be pushed together and a bar. The restaurant doesn’t take reservations and everyone knows how good it is. This means that there is almost always a wait… get there early and plan on waiting a while to eat. It opens for dinner at 6 pm. My group got there about 5:40 to wait for the doors to open. By 5:50 or so there was a line snaking down the street.
The food is well worth the wait. I have ordered the lobster roll every time. It is the perfect amount of mayo to lobster and the buttery roll it is served on compliments the salad perfectly. I have tried tastes of dishes that others ordered and they are great too. The waitstaff seems to have a good grasp on the wine list and I overheard a waitress recommending a wine to go with someone’s fish, so if you aren’t sure what wine you want, ask away.
All in all, Pearl Oyster is one of our go-tos for out-of-town guests. The seafood is some of the best I have had in New York City. Pearl Oyster is worth the minor inconveniences of waiting for a table and sitting in a slightly cramped space for the amazingly fresh food.
