Conch fritters is a signature dish of United States; we have verified places to eat it in Key West. Ground queen conch folded into a peppery batter with onion and sweet pepper, dropped into hot oil and served with a key lime or mustard dipping sauce. Start with where to eat Conch fritters in Key West.
Conch fritters · Key West
Ground queen conch folded into a peppery batter with onion and sweet pepper, dropped into hot oil and served with a key lime or mustard dipping sauce. The Bahamian dish that named the island's people.
Bahamian settlers, many arriving from the Abacos and Eleuthera through the 19th century, brought conch to Key West along with the word Conch itself, still the local term for anyone born on the island. Conch was cheap protein hauled from the flats. Florida's fishery could not survive the demand: harvest in Key West alone reached 250,000 conch a year in the 1960s, and after a moratorium in 1978 the state banned all queen conch harvest in 1985. Every fritter sold in Key West today is made from imported meat, mostly from Honduras, Belize and Jamaica, which is why menus say Bahamian style rather than local.
Where to eat in Key West:
- The Conch Shack
- Conch Republic Seafood Company
- Louie's Backyard
Where to eat Conch fritters in Key West: the editor picks