Rappahannock

320 E. Grace St.
545-0565
rroysters.com/restaurants/Rappahannock

Second Place: The Hard Shell

Third Place: Acacia Mid-Town

Esquire magazine named Rappahannock one of its best new restaurants of the year in 2014. Its reclaimed wood and milk chocolate walls hold diners in a wide embrace, and its menu full of seafood is a no-brainer — the restaurant belongs to Rappahannock Oyster Co.’s Ryan and Travis Croxton. Beyond raw oysters, you’ll find perfectly seared fish, wood-grilled octopus and a bourride of rockfish and oysters topped with a poached egg that will haunt you every time you consider another restaurant’s fish stew. Down at the end of Shockoe Slip, the Hard Shell has given Richmonders the raw stuff — shellfish, that is — since 1995. Four-time James Beard Award semifinalist Dale Reitzer has lots of things on the menu at his restaurant at Acacia Mid-Town, but the man knows his way around a fish — and there’s no other place you should be eating soft-shell crabs when they’re in season.