5 chesapeake restaurants worth the trip across United States, editor-ranked. All cuisines in United States.
Gertrude's Chesapeake Kitchen ★ 4.5 · Baltimore
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.
Tip: Lunch on the terrace overlooking the BMA sculpture garden is the quietest, prettiest seat in the house.
Rappahannock ★ 4.5 · Richmond
shockoe-slip · 320 E Grace Street, Richmond, VA 23219
Rappahannock on Grace pours oysters from the Croxton family farm in Topping, Virginia. The Richmond outpost of the Virginia oyster-farming revival.
Bar Buoy ★ 4.4 · Richmond
scotts-addition · 3200 Rockbridge Street, Richmond, VA 23230
Brittanny Anderson's Scott's Addition seafood room, opened September 2025 in the former Brenner Pass space. Casual Chesapeake fish-shack menu.
Acacia Midtown ★ 4.4 · Richmond
westhampton · 2363 Roux Street, Suite 105, Richmond, VA 23230
Dale Reitzer's third Acacia location, at Libbie Mill. Multi-time James Beard nominee and a 1999 Food and Wine Best New Chef; modern coastal Virginia cooking.
True Chesapeake Oyster Co. ★ 4.3 · Baltimore
hampden · 3300 Clipper Mill Road, Baltimore, MD 21211
True Chesapeake Oyster Co. in Whitehall Mill is chef Zack Mills's bay-to-table room, serving its own Jerome Creek oysters and a jumbo lump crab cake.
Tip: The oysters come from the restaurant's own farm; ask the bar which harvest is freshest that day.