Ground queen conch folded into a peppery batter with onion and sweet pepper, dropped into hot oil and served with a key lime or mustard dipping sauce. The Bahamian dish that named the island's people.
Where to eat it: 3 restaurants across 1 city.
Bahamian settlers, many arriving from the Abacos and Eleuthera through the 19th century, brought conch to Key West along with the word Conch itself, still the local term for anyone born on the island. Conch was cheap protein hauled from the flats. Florida's fishery could not survive the demand: harvest in Key West alone reached 250,000 conch a year in the 1960s, and after a moratorium in 1978 the state banned all queen conch harvest in 1985. Every fritter sold in Key West today is made from imported meat, mostly from Honduras, Belize and Jamaica, which is why menus say Bahamian style rather than local.
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Common allergens: Shellfish, Gluten, Eggs
Tip from the editors. Rest the batter before frying. It hydrates the flour and stops the fritters splitting open in the oil.
The Conch Shack fries conch fritters towards midnight at weekends, a sidewalk window on lower Duval Street feeding Key West drinkers between bars.
TryCracked conch with key lime aioli
TipThere is no dining room, just the sidewalk ledge; weekend hours stretch towards midnight for the bar crowd.
Conch Republic Seafood Company fills the old Singleton fish house on Key West's seaport with peel-and-eat pink shrimp, conch chowder and a long raw bar.
OrderPeel-and-eat Key West pink shrimp
TipThe original Singleton ice-plant floor and sign are still in place; sit at the harbour rail for the shrimp-dock view.
Louie's Backyard stacks oceanfront decks above the Atlantic at Waddell Avenue in Key West, serving island fare with the Afterdeck bar right on the water.
OrderConch fritters on the Afterdeck, then the daily catch upstairs
TipThe Afterdeck pours until late even when the dining room is booked out; Louie's takes its holiday in September.
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