A tomato-based vegetable soup loaded with blue crab and Old Bay, sharp and a little spicy. It is the savoury counterpart to the city's richer cream of crab, and most rooms pour both.
Maryland crab soup is the Chesapeake's vegetable-garden soup, a tomato broth packed with corn, lima beans, potatoes and blue crab, seasoned hard with Old Bay. It evolved as a thrifty way to stretch crab through a pot of summer vegetables. Its richer sibling, cream of crab, is a smooth, sherry-laced cream soup. Many Baltimore tables order them side by side, half and half in one bowl, and Chesapeake kitchens treat both as standards.
2 editor picks for Maryland crab soup in Baltimore, ranked by editorial score. All Baltimore signature dishes · Maryland crab soup across every city.
Faidley's Seafood ★ 4.7
downtown · 119 North Paca Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Faidley's Seafood at Lexington Market has sold its jumbo lump crab cake since 1886, a stand-up counter where you eat the city's benchmark cake off paper.
Gertrude's Chesapeake Kitchen ★ 4.4
downtown · 10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218
Gertrude's sits inside the Baltimore Museum of Art, where founder John Shields cooks the Chesapeake canon of crab cake and Maryland crab soup.