Pearl Dive Oyster Palace

The Kitchen at Pearl’s turns out some of the city’s best oyster dishes, appropriately enough, including the oyster po’ boy (cornmeal-fried oysters, house pickles, and aioli), oyster gumbo, and something called mariscos de Campechana, which is a stack of oyster, blue crab and shrimp, salsa, and avocado. But you don’t have to be a bivalve lover to come here: excellent non-oyster dishes include wood-grilled redfish and grass fed hanger steak. The only downside (which will be an upside for some): the crowd of rambunctious 20-something patrons who fill Pearl Dive’s gated front patio, like children in a playpen. Know that the dining room, with its nautical theme and friendly waitstaff, is a perfectly civilized place to eat, once you walk through the rowdy bar crowd.