The Best Oysters in Little Italy

Also worth your time in Little Italy

These didn't make our citywide oysters ranking, but they're real local options worth knowing about when you're already in Little Italy.

• Ironside Fish & Oyster

  Little Italy

  Order: A half-dozen from the daily raw board

  The neighborhood's dedicated oyster room, with a rotating East and West Coast list. Happy hour is the value window.

oysters in Little Italy, specifically

Little Italy's raw bars benefit from being minutes from the working waterfront and from a neighborhood dense enough to keep turnover high — which is the only thing that really matters with oysters. Both picks run daily-changing lists rather than a fixed selection, and both lean West Coast with occasional East Coast guests.

Which one to pick

Ironside is the full raw-bar experience and the better room for a dozen, a bottle, and two hours. Kettner Exchange is the happy-hour play: dollar-figure-per-oyster pricing in the early evening makes it the cheapest good oyster in the neighborhood, provided you arrive inside the window.

Before you go

Kettner's oyster pricing applies only during happy hour, which runs early and ends before prime dinner. Ironside seats walk-ins at the bar when the dining room is booked — that's usually the faster way in.