Neptune Oyster

Neptune Oyster is a compact seafood restaurant at 63 Salem Street in Boston's North End, in Massachusetts, United States. It sits on a quiet side street just off the Hanover Street crowds, in a narrow room with a marble raw bar, a handful of tables and a long counter facing the kitchen. The cuisine is New England seafood with Italian touches, reflecting the neighbourhood's long Italian-American heritage. The menu is built around the raw bar, where oysters from the Atlantic coast are shucked to order and listed by origin, alongside littleneck clams, shrimp and chilled shellfish platters. The lobster roll is the dish that made the restaurant's name and appears on most lists of the city's best. It is served hot with drawn butter on a toasted split-top bun, with a cold mayonnaise version also offered. Fried clams, pasta with clams, and rotating fish specials round out the menu, and the wine list leans toward crisp whites, Champagne and sparkling wines that suit shellfish. The dining room is small, bright and loud, with a busy, convivial energy and little privacy. Dress is casual. Because the room has so few seats, demand far exceeds supply. Most seats are held for walk-ins, so a wait at peak times is normal and often runs well over an hour on weekends. Visitors who arrive shortly before the 11:30am opening, or at off-peak mid-afternoon hours, usually wait least. Prices sit in the upper-moderate range for Boston, with the lobster roll and a few oysters typically bringing a lunch to a figure in the low-to-mid dollars per person above twenty. The restaurant is a short walk from Haymarket and the Paul Revere House, making it an easy stop on a North End food walk.