The 13 best seafood delivery services of 2024
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Whether you're located in a seaside state or hundreds of miles from any large body of water, quality seafood can be hard to come by. With all the fish and shellfish-related considerations, finding a filet at the grocery store that you feel confident about is daunting. Seafood delivery services can help facilitate top-notch catches accompanied by loads of information and ordering options.
As a former commercial and charter fisherman, as well as a raw bar tender, I know good — and bad — fish when I see it. We tried out dozens of delivery services, assessing sustainability, fishing practices, the catch's freshness, taste, and texture, as well as ordering options and packaging.
If you're curating a surf-and-turf dinner, find more of favorites in our guide to the best meat delivery services.
Top three seafood delivery services
Wulf's Fish
The brand's list of offerings is dizzying, but we love anything from the Atlantic coast. Scallops, tilefish, Acadian redfish, and cod are all favorites we've tried and are plucked from nearby waters.
Don't overlook the options from further afield: Wulf's also sells the illustrious Ōra King salmon from New Zealand, which is championed by a long list of high-profile chefs including those at Nobu and Per Se.
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The salmon poke packs are ready to be dressed and tumbled over rice, an ingenious and convenient offering for those making poke, ceviche, and other raw dishes. Read more about the brand's practices here.
Citarella
If you want fresh — not frozen — seafood delivered to your door no more than a few days out of the water, Citarella is your go-to. Sure, you'll pay for it, but everything comes fresh and expertly wrapped in wax paper, ready to eat. It's even patted dry and packaged with drying cloths so that when your fillets, prawns, or scallops arrive, they are ready to cook or eat right away.
I had to try the organic Madagascar shrimp from the first organic shrimp farm to get any attention. They arrived with the fresh, glassy sheen I am accustomed to finding on shrimp I purchase from friends dockside, not the opaque, desiccated appearance of frozen, or once-frozen shrimp you find in supermarkets. Citarella's Madagascar shrimp are sweet, they offer a firm crunch (provided you cook them well), and the heads, if you're into that sort of thing, are divine. Also, there's no deveining necessary.
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The bottom line with Citarella is that, yes, it's expensive, but if you don't want to leave your house, or if you happen to live hundreds or thousands of miles from the nearest coast, it is the best you're going to do across the board. This sort of thing is a special-occasion purchase for most of us. Why risk botching it?
Real Oyster Cult
The best oysters come from northern reaches, starting north of San Francisco on the West Coast and around Massachusetts on the East Coast. These are smaller, more delicate oysters, with deep cups and briny but complex meat — they're the ones you pay upward of $4 apiece for in upscale oyster bars.
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The great thing about receiving oysters this fresh (and live) is that they'll happily live in your fridge for at least 10 days, and we can attest to them holding up for at least five. We tried three different oysters ranging from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Prince Edward Island, Canada. Every single one had a deep cup, a very happy oyster inside, and a very healthy amount of elixir still trapped inside — all good signs, as this reporter, who once tended upscale oyster bars, should know.
Rastelli's
New Jersey-based Rastelli's, which has been around since the 1970s, may be known for being one of the best meat delivery service, but don't sell them short when it comes to seafood. The shrimp is perfectly processed and we can't recommend it enough, but the salmon is the real winner here.
It's brought in from Scandinavia and is sushi-grade, to which yours truly can attest. I tried three different fillets as sashimi at three different times and was consistently wowed. If you want the best Atlantic salmon you can find, and you're looking to make sushi or sashimi, this is the spot to get it.
Purefish
PureFish is the best in the business when it comes to quality packaging. Whatever you order, it will arrive on an oven-safe aluminum tray with portions for two, shrink-wrapped, and absolutely free of any air or water. The immaculately trimmed portions we received didn't even need drying. We added seasoning and put it right into the oven on the tray. While you can find more adventurous and arguably sustainable seafood elsewhere, there's nothing as convenient and fresh.
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Everything we tried was outstanding, from farm-raised salmon and steelhead to wild-caught yellowfin tuna. We sampled some of the tuna and salmon raw and found it to be perfectly good as sashimi. If you're looking to stock up on easy but quality meals for two, we highly recommend giving PureFish a try.
The Crab Place
We tried crab cakes, shucked oysters, live oysters, shrimp, and some of the largest scallops we've ever seen. Everything was good, but we really have to highlight the U-10 (10-count per pound) scallops. You'll want to follow the seasons and pick your seafood accordingly (seek out those massive scallops in winter and spring), but know that everything is coming right into port and shipping out to you almost immediately.
Also, a note to crab cake connoisseurs: do not be wary of these crab cakes. Though elsewhere they are almost always deceptively filled with bread crumbs and/or mayonnaise, The Crab Place's are the real deal.
Sizzlefish
Sizzlefish specializes in North Atlantic seafood, and the cod is right up there with Sea to Table's. Cod, which is increasingly substituted with Alaskan black cod and true cod, is not the easiest thing to find anymore, but it's worth seeking out when and where you can.
Our other favorite options are the (Alaska-caught) salmon and halibut, as well as the North Atlantic cod.
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You can get weekly, fortnightly, monthly, and even once-every-five-week deliveries of 12- or 14-serving boxes, and shipping is included. You can also place one-off orders of everything from sea scallops to crab cakes and softshell crabs from the Chesapeake Bay, calamari, and king crab legs.
Wild Alaskan Company
Our favorite from Wild Alaskan Company is the Wild White Fish Box. The fillets are perfectly packaged and vacuum-sealed, and as far as frozen seafood goes, it is top-notch.
The salmon, which is skin-on, has been a little hit-and-miss for us, and we've had several pieces arrive with the vacuum-sealed bag broken, resulting in brown and oxidized meat. This wasn't a reason to discard the fish or discount the brand — it happens from time to time, as vacuum-sealed bags can break in transit — but we encountered the same problem twice. However, other pieces of salmon from the same boxes turned out to be some of the best we tried.
Still, our favorite option is the Wild White Fish Box. These fish were skinless and perfectly filleted, and this is why we recommend Wild Alaskan Company.
Get Maine Lobster
Get Maine Lobster deals in the freshest available seafood from Maine. Note that live lobsters arrive fresh, and not frozen (there are options for frozen seafood too). You will want to eat it the night it arrives or the night after that.
Lobsters are plucked from the water the very morning of the day they're air-mailed to you — ours nearly kicked the box off the kitchen counter upon receipt — and tails are never more than a few days out of the water by the time you get them. The same goes for the scallops. I ate them raw and they were fresher than the ones I've had at most sushi bars.
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You're going to pay a premium if you go with Get Maine Lobster, and while other brands' lobsters are flash-frozen and of high quality, Get Maine Lobster's offerings are undoubtedly the best and the freshest.
Crowd Cow
While Crowd Cow does not offer a large selection of seafood, we find that to be more comforting. Oftentimes, the more on a menu, the more likely it is that something isn't up to snuff.
The halibut was a little on the expensive side, but the two Arctic char fillets were a steal. The lobster tails, though smaller (maybe about 4-5 ounces each), were an absolutely fair price. While you can do better, you might not find better packaging. It's not the most eco-friendly stuff, with a thick plastic tray, but it seems to work better than the standard vacuum-sealed bag.
Crowd Cow, like Sitka Salmon Shares, does use corn-starch-based foam and recycled plastic, as well as dry ice, to deliver your goods, though, which we appreciate far better than the run-of-the-mill styrofoam box, which needs to go.
Sitka Salmon Shares
Sitka Salmon Shares works like a community-supported agricultural (CSA) co-op, only with fish, otherwise known as a community-supported fishery (CSF).
The benefit for you is that Sitka Salmon Shares' fish is blast-frozen at -50 degrees Fahrenheit and expertly vacuum-sealed, so you can confidently load everything into your freezer and expect it to stay free of freezer burn and oxidation.
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The benefit for the fishermen is that by working within the cooperative, they're getting paid more than they would if they were selling their fish to processing plants — Sitka Salmon Shares has its own processing plant, and a strict set of handling processes, leaving you with higher quality fish than you might get at a large-scale processing plant.
Sea to Table
We like how Sea to Table vacuum-seals cuts of seafood, with not a pocket of air or ice trapped inside. You'll find delicately handled fillets and scallops, with nothing broken, nothing mangled, and no unsavory bits like oxidized meat or bloodline, which tend to be offensively pungent upon thawing (and don't do your health any favors either).
Sea to Table isn't just among the most accountable brands we found; it offers some of the more sustainability-minded catches. Think skate (an oft-overlooked finfish in the US; a delicacy across the Atlantic), Gulf of Maine redfish, and West Coast Dover sole. Try it all.
Of course, you can order all the salmon you want through the brand, but our favorite option is the Fish Lover's Box, which will get you sockeye salmon, Pacific cod, Gulf of Maine Redfish, Wild Gulf Shrimp, and Petrale Sole sole (12 six-ounce servings in all)..
Blue Circle Foods
On the more affordable end is Blue Circle Foods, which bills itself as a brand on a mission to make ethically-caught fish more sustainable. I did a little digging to find that Blue Circle is Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)-certified, and most of the brand's offerings are considered "good alternatives" by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program, which I prefer to go by.
I chose to try Indian Ocean-caught yellowfin tuna steaks from Blue Circle, which the Seafood Watch calls a depleted species. The brand's tuna is purportedly pole-caught using traceable and sustainable methods and then injected with beetroot for coloring, but when it comes to wild seafood catches taking place thousands of miles away, things can get mixed up. That's often the price you pay for buying inexpensive fish.
I enjoyed searing and slicing the yellowfin steaks, and was impressed by the freshness and quality. If you prefer salmon, Blue Circle's is farm-raised, and the brand's salmon nets are only filled to 2% capacity, to minimize the burden on their farming grounds. Blue Circle also sells ready-to-cook meals and "Happy Fish," which are fish-shaped fish sticks for the little ones.
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Wulf's Fish is a Boston, Massachusetts-based purveyor that specializes in seafood (including kelp) from the Atlantic seaboard of the U.S., including fillets, whole fish, shellfish, but you'll also find a host of caviars and roes, as well as farmed fish from far and wide.
The brand's list of offerings is dizzying, but we can't recommend anything from the Atlantic coast enough. Scallops, tilefish, Acadian redfish, and cod are all favorites we've tried, and are plucked from nearby waters.
Other options aren't to be overlooked either, though. The brand also sells the illustrious Ōra King salmon from New Zealand, which is championed by a long list of high-profile chefs including those at Nobu and Per Se.
The Chalkstream trout is another farmed option from the United Kingdom that looks and tastes every bit as fatty as North Atlantic salmon, and the poke packs of salmon and kampachi (amberjack) are ready to be dressed and tumbled over rice, which is an ingenious and convenient offering for those looking to make poke, ceviche, and other raw dishes.
Another big standout is the seaweed salad in all its various forms. It's become a staple in my house, and we think of (and use) it along the lines of kimchi.
Read more about the brand's practices here.
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Wixter Market sources a wide array of wild and farmed fish in all forms, from frozen to canned and ready to eat.
A globally sourced supplier, you can find almost anything you want from tinned sardines, cockles, and tuna belly to octopus, yellowtail, and Chilean sea bass (a more market-friendly name for the fish more formally known as Patagonian toothfish).
While we enjoyed the Australian Yellowtail, the Norwegian-farmed steelhead, and the Orange Roughy — they were cleanly processed and packaged, and nothing was "off" by any means — the stars were the brand's canned fish.
All in all, though, if you want variety in one single order, look to Wixter's bundles, which are generously priced variety packs of what is seemingly almost anything you could want.
Read more about Wixter Market's sourcing and commitments here.
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If you're looking for the best, freshest farmed salmon money can buy, Ōra King's New Zealand king salmon is as rich and fatty as any we've tried.
Wild king salmon might be preferred depending on your politics, but it's prohibitively expensive for many people, and Ōra King's is one of the better-farmed options around and is a staple of such notable chefs as Daniel Boulud, Nobu Matsuhisa, and Thomas Keller.
Always shipped and delivered fresh (never frozen), you can order up to an entire four-to-five-pound side (fillet) for an incredibly reasonable price.
We cut up one preparing to place it on the grill and ended up eating the entire thing raw, which I can't recommend enough. The larger fillets are great for small dinner parties, and the smaller ones are good for one-to-two meals for two or three people.
Read more about Ōra King's farming practices here.
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PureFish is the best in the business when it comes to quality packaging. Whatever you order, it will arrive on an oven-safe aluminum tray with portions for two, shrink-wrapped, and absolutely free of any air or water. The immaculately trimmed portions we received didn't even need drying. We added seasoning and put it right into the oven on the tray.
While you can find more adventurous and arguably sustainable seafood elsewhere, you may have trouble finding something so incredibly well processed and so conveniently packaged.
Everything we tried was outstanding, if run-of-the-mill species like farm-raised salmon and steelhead and wild-caught yellowfin tuna. We sampled some of the tuna and salmon raw and found it to be perfectly good as sashimi. The brand is on the younger side and building out its inventory, though, and you will find more localized species like wild-caught striped bass, cobia, and Pacific black cod.
If you're looking to stock up on easy but quality meals for two, we highly recommend giving PureFish a try. There's nothing quite so convenient and fresh.
Read more about Purefish's sourcing here.
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Sizzlefish is another subscription-based service, but it's much more affordable than most, starting at $6.99 per serving.
The brand specializes in North Atlantic seafood, and the cod is right up there with Sea to Table's. Cod, which is increasingly substituted with Alaskan black cod and true cod, is not the easiest thing to find anymore, but it's worth seeking out when and where you can.
Our other favorite options are the (Alaska-caught) salmon and halibut, as well as the North Atlantic cod.
You can get weekly, fortnightly, monthly, and even once-every-five-week deliveries of 12- or 14-serving boxes, and shipping is included. You can also place one-off orders of everything from blue mussels to diver, or sea scallops, crab cakes and softshell crabs from the Chesapeake Bay, calamari, and king crab legs.
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You might not think to look to a brand called "Crowd Cow" for seafood, but lo and behold, we tested halibut, Maine lobster tails, and Icelandic-farmed Arctic Char (a healthy and far more sustainable alternative to farmed salmon), and everything was in spectacular shape.
And while Crowd Cow does not offer a large selection of seafood, we find that to be more comforting. Oftentimes, the more on a menu, the more likely it is that something isn't up to snuff.
The halibut was a little on the expensive side at over $16 for a 6-ounce fillet, but the two Arctic char fillets at $18 were a steal. The lobster tails, though on the smaller size (maybe about 4-5 ounces each) for $22 is an absolutely fair price, and while you can do better, you might not find better packaging. It's not the most eco-friendly stuff, with a thick plastic tray, but it seems to work better than the standard vacuum-sealed bag, for the most part.
Crowd Cow, like Sitka Salmon Shares, does use corn-starch-based foam and recycled plastic, as well as dry ice, to deliver your goods, though, which we appreciate far better than the run-of-the-mill styrofoam box, which needs to go.
Crowd Cow is also one of our favorite places to buy beef, which is organically raised.
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Sitka Salmon Shares works like a community-supported agricultural (CSA) co-op, only with fish, otherwise known as a community-supported fishery (CSF). Members can enroll at three-, six-, and nine-month intervals and receive their monthly share (with no-contact delivery). Depending on the size of the box you decide upon, prices per pound will range from $18 to $28, and monthly shares start at $119 per month.
That's just shy of what you'll pay in most markets for fresh black cod, and a good deal less than what you'd pay for fresh, wild halibut or salmon (which is often frozen and thawed). The benefit for you is that Sitka Salmon Shares' fish is blast-frozen at -50 degrees Fahrenheit and expertly vacuum-sealed, so you can confidently load everything into your freezer and expect it to stay free of freezer burn and oxidation, which happen when there's water or air trapped inside the bag.
The benefit for the fishermen is that by working within the cooperative, they're getting paid more than they would if they were selling their fish to processing plants — Sitka Salmon Shares has its own processing plant, and a strict set of handling processes, leaving you with higher quality fish than you might get at a large-scale processing plant.
You also get what's in season, and won't be receiving last year's salmon just because that's the number one Alaskan fish everyone knows and loves. Throughout the course of a year, you'll receive salmon, yes, but also black cod, lingcod, halibut, prawns, and Dungeness crab.
We tried Sitka Salmon Shares in early June and received a box of halibut, black cod, and lingcod, which were the species running at the time. Halibut is a coveted fish that often goes for $40 a pound in New York, so the two roughly one-pound fillets we received already made up for over half of the cost of a box. The rest, which amounted to six half-pound-or-more fillets of black cod and lingcod — less sought-after fish — would probably fall more on the $18-a-pound side of the spectrum, but between all of the species overall, you're getting more and higher quality Alaskan seafood than you'd get at your typical grocery store fish counter for that price.
Lastly, Sitka Salmon Shares ships in some of the most sustainable packaging around, using corn-starch-based foam as opposed to styrofoam, which is wrapped in recycled #4 plastic bags and filled with dry ice. Everything arrived still solidly frozen and was immaculately sealed. We will hang on to a few of these until next year to see how they fare, but by the looks of the packaging, we're confident they'll last that long.
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If you want fresh — not frozen — seafood delivered to your door no more than a few days out of the water, Citarella is your go-to. Sure, you'll pay for it, but everything comes fresh and expertly wrapped in wax paper, ready to eat. It's even patted dry and packaged with drying cloths so that when your fillets, prawns, or scallops arrive, they are ready to cook, or eat right away (we wasted no time with the scallops at my house, and had them raw, which is my definitive quality test for fresh seafood purveyors).
Apart from your run-of-the-mill snapper, flounder, grouper, clams, and striped bass, you'll find deep-sea and far-flung treasures such as tilefish and the organic Madagascar shrimp you see above. I'm usually not sold on fish farming for a number of reasons, but this is the first organic shrimp farm to get any attention out of Madagascar, Citarella owner and CEO Joe Gurrera assured me. "I try to be as modern as I can be," he said. "I'm the first person in this country to have these shrimp fresh. People sell them frozen, and not organic... I got my second shipment just before Covid-19."
I had to try them. They arrived with the fresh, glassy sheen I am accustomed to finding on shrimp I purchase from friends dockside, not the opaque, desiccated appearance of frozen, or once-frozen shrimp you find in the freezer aisles of megalithic supermarkets. Citarella's Madagascar shrimp are sweet, they offer a firm crunch (provided you cook them well), and the heads, if you're into that sort of thing, are divine. Also, there's no deveining necessary.
The bottom line with Citarella is that, yes, it's expensive, but if you don't want to leave your house, or if you happen to live hundreds or thousands of miles from the nearest coast, it is the best you're going to do across the board, hands down. You might find smaller purveyors with better prices for live lobster, or crabs, and in that case, go with them. There are a couple of those on this list. But if you want a little of everything, or a fillet of deep-sea fish as fresh as fresh can possibly be short of buying it off the dock (or catching it yourself) call upon Citarella and pay up. This sort of thing is a special-occasion purchase for most of us. Why risk botching it?
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If it's Caribbean- or Florida-based seafood you're after, you'll have a tough time finding yellowtail snapper, gulf shrimp, or stone crab claws any fresher. Everything we tried (and more than 3,000 miles away from Florida, in San Francisco, at that) was expertly packaged and sealed, and arrived without a drop of air and minimal water inside.
We even ate the Florida Royal Red Shrimp raw on your behalf, dear reader (highly recommended). The black grouper and butterflied yellowtail snapper hardly even needed a patting from a paper towel before going into the oven, and the shrimp were sweet and plump and clearly not previously frozen.
You can find plenty of frozen fish around, and there is any number of mongers willing and able to send your fresh (and not previously frozen) seafood at the tip of a hat. They will all cost you, of course, but where Peter's Florida Seafood shines is in its attention to the advantage of its locality. And while the purveyor does offer options from Alaska (and we imagine they're plenty fine), options like the yellowtail, the Florida Royal Red Shrimp (which are deep-dwelling cool-water crustaceans from off the coast of the Sunshine State), the stone crab claws, and the black grouper are specialties that attract us.
In short, save your live Maine lobster for a Maine-based purveyor, but when it comes to ordering tropical and subtropical species as fresh as fresh gets, look to Peter's.
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Sea to Table leaves you with the most information about your catch right on the label. You'll know exactly how and when your fish was caught, as well as where it was landed, and you'll get a very reasonable "best by" date.
We like how Sea to Table vacuum-seals cuts of seafood, too, with not a pocket of air or ice trapped inside. You'll find delicately-handled fillets and scallops, with nothing broken, nothing mangled, and no unsavory bits like oxidized meat or bloodline, which tend to be offensively pungent upon thawing (and don't do your health any favors either).
Sea to Table isn't just among the most accountable brand we found, it offers some of the more sustainability-minded catches. Think skate (an oft-overlooked finfish in the US; a delicacy across the Atlantic), Gulf of Maine redfish, and West Coast Dover sole. Try it all.
Of course, you can order all the salmon you want through the brand, but our favorite option is the Fish Lover's Box, which will get you two types of salmon, Pacific cod, Gulf of Maine Redfish, Skate, and West Coast Dover sole (12 six-ounce servings in all) for less than $90.
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New Jersey-based Rastelli's, which has been around since the 1970s, may be known for its meat, but don't sell them short when it comes to seafood.
The shrimp is perfectly processed and we can't recommend it enough, but the salmon is the real winner here.
It's brought in from Scandinavia and is sushi-grade, to which yours truly can attest. I tried three different fillets as sashimi at three different times and was consistently wowed. If you want the best Atlantic salmon you can find, and you're looking to make sushi or sashimi, this is the spot to get it.
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Get Maine Lobster deals in the freshest available seafood from Maine. It offers a small menu, but if you want the best and freshest lobster and/or scallops you can get your hands on without going down to the docks or hauling them up yourself, this is the place to shop.
Note that live lobsters arrive fresh, and not frozen (there are options for frozen seafood too). You will want to eat it the night it arrives or the night after that. (Though we did stretch the scallops for three days.)
Lobsters are plucked from the water the very morning of the day they're air-mailed to you — ours nearly kicked the box off the kitchen counter upon receipt — and tails are never more than a few days out of the water by the time you get them. The same goes for the scallops. I ate them raw and they were fresher than the ones I've had at most sushi bars.
You're going to pay a premium if you go with Get Maine Lobster, and while other brands' lobsters are flash-frozen and of high quality, Get Maine Lobster's offerings are undoubtedly the best and the freshest. The brand also touts being the only certified Fair Trade lobster purveyor on earth.
For a limited time, Get Maine Lobster is teaming up with Rtic Coolers to send out lobster (live, frozen tails, lobster roll kits) in a Get Maine Lobster-embossed 8-can Rtic Cooler.
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Thrive Market is a membership-based grocer that's almost like a small-scale, high-quality, web-based Costco. Most of the retailer's items come in bulk, making it a great option for families looking to stock up on seafood.
That being said, it's also handy for larger one-off purchases by individuals with enough freezer space — as long as they use the subscription for other grocery items to offset the $60 annual membership fee.
Standouts were the superbly peeled, deveined, and vacuum-sealed shrimp, and the salmon. The scallops aren't the best or the freshest you'll find, but they are flash-frozen, which means no excess water or chance for oxidization.
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Wild Alaskan Company is a monthly (or bi-monthly) subscription membership that offers a choice selection of wild-caught finfish from the waters off Alaska. Salmon (silver, king, or sockeye), white-fleshed fish (usually halibut or cod), or a combination of both will arrive in six-ounce, flash-frozen, individually-wrapped pieces.
Our favorite is the Wild White Fish Box. The fillets are perfectly packaged and vacuum-sealed, and as far as frozen seafood goes, it is top-notch.
The salmon, which is skin-on, has been a little hit and miss for us, and we've had several pieces arrive with the vacuum-sealed bag broken, resulting in brown and oxidized meat. This wasn't a reason to discard the fish or discount the brand — it happens from time to time, as vacuum-sealed bags can break in transit — but we encountered the same problem twice. However, other pieces of salmon from the same boxes turned out to be some of the best we tried.
Still, our favorite option is the Wild White Fish Box. These fish were skinless and perfectly filleted, and this is why we recommend Wild Alaskan Company.
Blue Circle Foods
On the more affordable end is Blue Circle Foods, which bills itself as a brand on a mission to make ethically-caught fish more sustainable. I did a little digging to find that Blue Circle is Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)-certified, and most of the brand's offerings are considered "good alternatives" (as opposed to best choices) by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program, which I prefer to go by. (MSC is a pay-to-play certification given to individual companies, rather than species, fishing practices, and locations, so you might not find the same objective ratings you'll find on Seafood Watch.)
I chose to try Indian Ocean-caught yellowfin tuna steaks from Blue Circle, and Seafood Watch has the following to say about the species: "Yellowfin tuna are depleted, and overfishing is still occurring. Trolling lines have minimal bycatch and habitat impacts."
The brand's tuna is purportedly pole-caught using traceable and sustainable methods and then injected with beetroot for coloring, but when it comes to wild seafood catches taking place thousands of miles away and passing through multiple ports and nations, things can get mixed up. That's often the price you pay for buying curiously inexpensive fish.
I was able to sear and slice the yellowfin steaks, and there was no off, "fishy" taste. Tuna, when it starts to turn, has an unbearably gamey flavor, and it's something that I personally have never been able to put up with. Note that the above photo is not mine; I forgot to snap a shot of this particular shipment, but the size and coloration compared with what I received is spot on.
If you prefer salmon, Blue Circle's is farm-raised, and the brand's salmon nets are only filled to 2% capacity, to minimize the burden on their farming grounds. Blue Circle also sells ready-to-cook meals and "Happy Fish," which are fish-shaped fish sticks for the little ones.
The bottom line is, Blue Circle offers very serviceable frozen fish from decent — although far from perfect— fishing practices at prices most of us can agree on.
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If you're after Maryland blue crab in all of its delectable forms, ginormous U-10 (10-count to a pound) sea scallops, or shrimp the size of your palm, The Crab Place has been the place for online seafood supply since its inception in 1997. It's not quite a CSF, but you'll be getting seafood fresh-frozen right off the boat.
We tried crab cakes, shucked oysters, live oysters, shrimp, and some of the largest scallops we've ever seen. Everything was good, but we really have to highlight the U-10 (10-count per pound) scallops. You'll want to follow the seasons and pick your seafood accordingly (seek out those massive scallops in winter and spring), but know that everything is coming right into port and shipping out to you almost immediately.
Also, a note to crab cake connoisseurs: do not be wary of these crab cakes. Though elsewhere they are almost always deceptively filled with bread crumbs and/or mayonnaise, The Crab Place's are the real deal.
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With oyster farms appearing up and down both coasts of the US, it's now easy to get fresh oysters all year long. But the best oysters come from more northern reaches, starting north of San Francisco on the West Coast and around Massachusetts on the East Coast.
These smaller, more delicate oysters, with their deep cups and briny but complex meat are favored around the world, and they're the ones you pay upwards of $4 apiece for in upscale oyster bars.
Sold in 20-, 50-, and 100-count portions, you'll get prime, cleanly rinsed oysters delivered anywhere in the country for as little as $1.45 apiece, like our favorite Pink Moons from Prince Edward Island's New London Bay.
You might find local oysters for less than that depending on where you live, and by all means, buy those. But if you're looking for a treat, or you live nowhere near the ocean, Real Oyster Cult will delight.
The great thing about receiving oysters this fresh (and live) is that they'll happily live in your fridge for at least 10 days, and we can attest to them holding up for at least five.
We tried three different oysters ranging from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Prince Edward Island, Canada, and every single one had a deep cup, a very happy oyster inside, and a very healthy amount of elixir still trapped inside — all good signs, as this reporter, who once tended upscale oyster bars, should know.
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Lobster Anywhere has been in the game for more than 20 years, and offers some of the most competitive prices for lobster online.
The brand specializes in more than just lobster, but first things first: if you are looking for truly colossal lobster tails, look no further. These things are about the size of your forearm and are more than enough for dinner for two, or maybe even three.
Lobster tails will come neatly in-shell, which is a perfect way to broil, grill, or even sautée them. The tails won't be flash-frozen at -50 degrees Fahrenheit, but lobster meat tends to stand up to regular freezing better than, say, fish.
The brand also offers Gulf of Maine redfish, which is an underappreciated white-fleshed fish that's not readily available everywhere, as well as hearty lobster bisque and clam chowder.
And if you're after live lobster, you're going to get the best deal here, with live 1.25-pound lobster coming in at $26.95 plus shipping.
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If you're vegan or vegetarian and are looking to add some kelp to your diet, there are plenty of places to order it online. Here are some highly-rated brands we know of, but haven't tested:
Sequoia: Fresh by the pound, dried, freeze-dried, in seasonings, in supplements, Sequoia offers California seaweed just about every which way.
Barnacle Foods: Salsa, hot sauce, pickles, seasonings; Barnacle Foods offers a sampling of Alaskan kelp prepared in many different ways.
Maine Coast Sea Vegetables: If you're looking for raw sea greens and kelp in bulk, this place has the widest range of offerings we've found. They also sell several dried snack options, as well as seasonings and sushi nori.
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