Scrod is a young Atlantic cod or haddock, typically under 2.5 pounds, broiled with breadcrumbs and lemon butter. The defining Boston seafood-room weeknight order from the 1920s through the 1980s.

The word scrod came into Boston use around 1850 as a fishing-fleet term for the smallest cod or haddock landed that day. The Parker House Hotel popularised broiled scrod on its menu by 1880 with a butter-breadcrumb topping; the dish became the city's mid-20th-century seafood-room default at Locke-Ober, the Coach Grill, Anthony's Pier 4 and dozens of hotel rooms. The collapse of New England cod stocks in the 1990s shifted scrod to haddock by industry default, but Legal Sea Foods, Atlantic Fish Co and Union Oyster House still list the dish on the menu year-round. Boston is the only American city where the word still appears on menus without parenthesis or explanation.

2 editor picks for Scrod in Boston, ranked by editorial score. All Boston signature dishes · Scrod across every city.