Charleston Crab Cake appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Charleston crab cake · Charleston
A loosely bound disc of jumbo-lump blue crab, almost all meat and very little filler, pan-seared in butter and served with remoulade and lemon. The Lowcountry seafood-house benchmark.
Charleston crab cakes have been a staple of the city's harbourside cooking since the late 19th century, when local blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) from the tidal estuaries was sold by the bushel at the city docks. The Karesh family ran a wholesale business at 215 Meeting Street from 1890; their descendants opened Hyman's Seafood there in 1987, and the dish remains the house signature. The contemporary fine-dining versions at The Ordinary, Leon's and Husk follow the same restraint, the meat barely held together so it falls apart on the fork.
Where to eat in Charleston:
- Hyman's Seafood
- The Ordinary
- Leon's Fine Poultry and Oysters