Where To Find Kara Swisher Eating Oysters
The journalist and podcast host shares her favorite spots for some shellfish with a view.
photo credit: Philip Montgomery / New York Magazine
Welcome to Perfect For, an Infatuation series of ultra-specific restaurant recommendations from people around town you don't know personally, but might wish you did. Today, podcaster and editor Kara Swisher shares a few of her favorite seafood spots.
Even for Kara Swisher, Kara Swisher’s got a lot going on. If you’ve kept up with everyone’s favorite rich-but-morally-bankrupt family, you probably know her from Succession’s companion podcast, but she’s also an editor-at-large at New York Magazine, where she hosts On and Pivot. After spending the better part of a decade living in San Francisco, teaching her kids to love excellent West Coast bivalves, she now lives in Washington, DC, sharing her takes on Big Tech and Chesapeake oysters.
These are her favorite places to enjoy seafood, including a Marin County shack where you can enjoy grilled oysters by the water and a big noisy city bar where you can eat by yourself and not feel alone.
photo credit: Brit Finnegan
“My favorite place in the world is Anchor Oyster Bar in San Francisco. It’s a small little place in the Castro, and it’s just perfect. The oysters are amazing, the food is amazing—it’s just a tiny little kitchen with lines out the door all the time. We even love the wait, because there’s a little bench outside. They also built an outdoor area, which makes it easier to get in.”
“I like a big noisy restaurant. Everything I like is an oyster bar. The Grand Central Oyster Bar, for example—it’s noisy and big and ridiculous. And you sit at the counter, which is what I also do at Anchor Oyster Bar. I like that Grand Central Oyster Bar is a different experience from that. I like the craziness and the cavernous nature of it. You can be by yourself and not feel alone.”
“The Marshall Store is one of my favorite places. You just go up to the counter—it’s a shack and they're grilling oysters. You could also get fresh oysters, obviously, and they have outdoor tables right along the water. It’s so beautiful. People tend to go to Hog Island nearby, which is the famous one. I like Hog Island—I think it’s great—but the Marshall Store is this little waterfront oyster shack and they have a smokehouse, too.”
“I taught my kids to love oysters from when they were very little, and whenever I can go and have them, I sometimes just stop by and have six or seven. That’s the disappointment of living in DC. They think they have really good oysters, but they do not. I don’t like Chesapeake oysters, so I don’t have a favorite oyster bar here. DC has very good crabs, though. There’s a place in Arlington I really, really like called Quarterdeck. They have really good crabs, you sit outside, and you eat things. I tend to like sitting outside and eating food if I can.”
Suggested Reading
7 spots that are special enough for tourists and cool for locals.
Actor Danny Trejo tells us his go-to spots for pastrami sandwich cravings, excellent tamales, and more.
Whether you're driving up a Panamanian mountain, or just getting on a plane to LA, these restaurants are all worth the journey.