With her culinary travel partners in tow, writer Betsa Marsh traversed Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, in search of the people, places, and restaurants behind delicious and very local fish and seafood.

Share this article to Pinterest and plan to visit Chesapeake Bay restaurants in Maryland.

Hungry for more? Read about Betsa’s stops along the Lobster Trail.

Seafood fresh from Chesapeake Bay in Maryland

There’s not a fishing pole or crab pot among us, but the Ladies are still determined to snag every bit of the Chesapeake Bay’s scrumptious seafood. My loyal group of friends, The Ladies Discoursive and Digestive Society, is ferociously trawling Maryland’s Eastern Shore, hamlets lapped by the brackish waters of America’s largest estuary, Chesapeake Bay.  We’re focused on crab cakes and oysters, but we’re broad-minded enough to sweep up some of Prince Edward Island’s best mussels, too.

The sun dips over the rooftop dining at St. Michael’s Harbour Inn, home of some of the area’s best crab cakes.

And who should we meet, as we wander along Tilghman Island, but the very fishers themselves. Amanda and Thomas Haddaway are on deck of Pa’s Pride II, baiting trot lines as fast as their fingers can fly. Amanda stuffs small orange pouches with razor clams, then Thomas ties them to the line. They have an easy rhythm, set to the clanking of the Tilghman Island drawbridge and worked out over five years of marriage. Amanda’s a Delaware native, but she knew she’d have to head to Maryland for Thomas. He’s a third-generation waterman, working the Choptank River. “I didn’t know what I was getting into,” Amanda says with a deep laugh. They pull crab from April through summer, then oysters from October through winter. The Ladies who are devouring every Chesapeake Bay crab cake they can find salute them heartily for their service.

Amanda and Thomas Haddaway take a break from crab fishing at Tilghman Island Harbor. Amanda even shares her recipe for crab cakes: lump meat, “an egg or two to bind, very little breadcrumbs, a bit of mayo and mustard.”

Hungry for more? Here’s Betsa’s guide to eating in Nantucket.

Touring the Chesapeake Bay seafood restaurants

Each day, we set off for a new Chesapeake Bay restaurant in and around St. Michaels, our seafood festival base. First night, we saunter into town for a St. Michaels landmark, Awful Arthur’s on Talbot Street. The moment we open the door of the old house, we’re wreathed in J.O. Spice, a miasma of peppers, ginger and laurel leaves that tickles the sinuses. This is such an Eastern Shore moment: It depends on the cook, but it’s either Old Bay or J.O. everywhere in the state. Awful Arthur’s, it seems, is J.O. loyal.

Arthur’s plump Chesapeake Bay crab cakes are mellow and traditional, full of lump meat still holding its form. This is a hallmark of Maryland cakes, and some cooks and chefs here pride themselves on not crumbling one morsel of this precious meat, often $50 a pound.

Maryland crab cakes from Awful Arthur’s stand at golden attention in downtown St. Michaels.

The Chincoteague oysters get a Lady’s thumbs up, and I’m even reckless enough to head up to Canada for some Prince Edward Island mussels in a classic sauce of garlic and white wine. It’s a perfect start to a seafood binge.

Next night, time to dress a bit and mingle with the toffs at the Inn at Perry Cabin. This historic estate, a short drive outside St. Michaels, has always meant relaxation and exquisite food. We opt for Purser‘s Pub, the more casual dinner option, and share a high-top table for five. Soon it’s Chesapeake Bay oysters presented as grandly as a bridal bouquet, and the Perry Cabin’s version of a crab cake, shaped into an inch-high log. It gives way to large, luscious flakes.

The local Harris Creek oysters at Inn at Perry Cabin are arranged like a stylish bouquet, with mignonette granita, gooseberry and kohlrabi greens.

We always save room for the other bookend to our seafood quest, the Smith Island cake. This is one of those culinary legends that you’re not certain really exists until you roll into Maryland. The story is that the ladies of Smith Island, 10 miles south of St. Michaels in Chesapeake Bay, wanted to send their fisher folk off with bracing meals and a little bit of seven-layer love. It’s yellow cake torted into seven skinny layers and slathered with chocolate fudge, which the fishers reported lasted longer than any other icing. Every authentic cake comes from the Smith Island Baking Co., and we sample this Maryland state dessert all over the Eastern Shore.

Certainly, Perry Cabin has the most delicious-looking cake: glossy mirror glaze, tart strawberry ice cream, foam and dehydrated berries. It’s a fabulous tribute to the Smith Island concept of fresh-from-the-oven love.

The Smith Island cake at the Inn at Perry Cabin is a vision of mirror glaze playing off tart strawberry ice cream, foam and dehydrated berries.

Each day, we wander the Chesapeake, exploring hard-working boats and lighthouses at St. Michaels Maritime Museum. Some people split off to try every coffeehouse in town and Blue Heron gets some serious love.

One day, we venture to Cambridge and stand in awe at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center. Only when we see the brackish inlets can we truly appreciate how terrifying it must have been for this slight woman to make 13 trips back to Maryland to free enslaved people, dodging through the swampy landscape at night, dogs at their heels. She was never caught.

As we start to wrap up our week, the Ladies relearn that old travel cliché: you don’t really explore what’s in your own backyard. We’ve been at St. Michael’s Harbor Inn all week, but we’ve never stayed for dinner. This is the time to head to the rooftop, watch the sunset and try the crab cakes closest to home.

Eureka! Leslie Harrison, co-owner with her husband Bud of Harrison Harbour Lights Restaurant, sautés the highest, fluffiest crab cakes within miles, and doesn’t crumble one iota of crab meat. She’s staunchly in the no-egg brigade, she reveals in a whisper, and just binds everything together with a bit of mayonnaise, mustard “and love.” Count her an Old Bay loyalist. It’s a recipe handed down by Bud’s Grandmother Alice, and plumped up with local crab from G.W. Hall & Son. Recipe and purveyor are each more than a century old.

Yes, it’s a casual presentation, but the crab cakes at Harrison Harbour Lights restaurant in St. Michaels are some of the best in the region.

Harrison’s Harbour Lights crab cakes are the purest taste of the Chesapeake I’ve had all week, a tribute to the hard-fishing watermen and women like the Haddaways who share the bounty of the bay with grateful landlubbers.

— Story and photos by Betsa Marsh

Hungry for more? Read about a seafood buffet at the Illani Casino in Portland.

You don’t want to forget which local seafood restaurants to eat at in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland so be sure to Pin them to Pinterest.