Conch pounded thin, dredged and flash fried until the edges curl, served with lime and a sharp sauce. The other half of Key West's conch repertoire, and the harder one to cook well.
Where to eat it: 2 restaurants across 1 city.
Cracked refers to the mallet work, not the batter: Bahamian cooks beat the muscle until the fibres break down, which is the only way to get a tender result from a mollusc built to live inside a fortress. The technique arrived with Bahamian settlers in the 1800s and stayed on Key West menus long after the local fishery closed. Since Florida's 1985 harvest ban the meat has been imported from the Caribbean, and the difference between a good plate and a bad one is entirely in the pounding. Conch Republic Seafood Company serves it with an orange horseradish marmalade; B.O.'s Fish Wagon fries it in a driftwood shack at Caroline and William.
Common allergens: Shellfish, Gluten
Tip from the editors. Pound it further than feels sensible. Undercooked-looking conch is fine; overcooked conch is a rubber band and cannot be rescued.
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.
Signature: Key West pink shrimp, Conch chowder
Order: Peel-and-eat Key West pink shrimp
Tip: The original Singleton ice-plant floor and sign are still in place; sit at the harbour rail for the shrimp-dock view.
B.O.'s Fish Wagon is Key West's driftwood shack at Caroline and William, frying grouper sandwiches and cracked conch under a roof of netting and plates.
Signature: Grouper sandwich, Conch fritters
Order: Fried grouper sandwich with key lime sauce
Tip: It is open-air and cash-friendly chaos; go at off-hours because the shack smells like fried fish for good reason.
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