Island Creek Oyster Bar (Boston, MA)

When out of town family or friends visit me in Boston, they (naturally) ask for seafood, so I end up at Island Creek Oyster Bar quite a few times. Really, the trio of restaurants/bars at Hotel Commonwealth is a trifecta of amazing spots dangerously easy for a food/drink crawl. Starting with dinner (and drinks) at Island Creek Oyster, you can move next door for cocktails at The Hawthorne, and then keep going for late night eats and more cocktails at Eastern Standard.

But back to Island Creek Oyster Bar first, a mecca of fine seafood in the Fenway Kenmore area. It's started by the people behind the Island Creek Oyster farm down in Duxbury, MA, so you know they're getting their Duxbury oysters super fresh directly from the farm.

They have a nice variety of the freshest oysters. A lot of them come from Duxbury, and naturally while the other varietals rotate, they always have Island Creek oysters.

A great place to sample some varietals you haven't tried before.

Bread with honey butter

Their most popular appetizer is perhaps the oyster slider ($4 each)

A crispy fried oyster is served between brioche bun with lime chile aioli.

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A Tour of Island Creek Oyster Farm in Duxbury, MA

Because it's National Oyster Day, I wanted to share with you my recent visit to Island Creek Oyster farm in Duxbury, MA. Island Creek has some of the best oysters in the North American east coast!

One thing I did not know is that the waters in this area (Duxbury, Cape Cod, etc) is actually too cold for oysters to spawn. They can grow and live here, but not spawn because the water never gets warm enough. Still, there are 3 acres with 24 osyter farmers out in Duxbury bay now.

Island Creek used to buy seeds when the owner, Skip, started growing oysters in 1994. But recently, they've started their own hatchery. These colorful tubes contain various types of algae that they use to feed the spawning and growing oysters in the hatchery.

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