MIAReview
photo credit: Merritt Smail
Shore To Door Fish Market
Included In
There is a perfect setting for every food. Corn dogs should be eaten at a state fair, buttered popcorn in a dark movie theater, and anything on the Cracker Barrel menu just won’t be the same unless consumed during a road trip to drop off your little brother at some college in the Panhandle.
There’s a lot of good seafood in Miami and plenty of places to have it—but perhaps no setting in the city is more appropriate for fried fish than Shore To Door. It’s at this Coconut Grove spot, while alternating between a pile of Key West shrimp and smoked fish dip, that it hit us: This is the way we want to eat seafood for the rest of our lives—fresh from the ocean, in a sunny backyard, with a neverending cooler of beer a short walk away.
Shore To Door is a seafood market and restaurant that only serves food on Saturday and Sunday from noon(ish) till about sunset (it's a good idea to call first to make sure they're open, since they sometimes sell out of product earlier than anticipated). But this place feels less like a restaurant and more like getting a text from your friend who likes to fish that says, “We need help eating all the snapper we caught today. Come over.”
And like a spontaneous backyard cookout, eating here is a leisurely experience. Do not come for a speedy 30-minute meal. That won't happen, especially since there's usually only a single cook running the whole show. Instead, come for a lazy weekend afternoon of squeezing limes onto delicious things and losing track of how many beers you’ve had. All of the seafood here is sourced as locally as possible, and the menu really does depend on the daily catch. Generally, though, you can expect conch salad, fish dip, shrimp, a whole fried snapper, and stone crab if it’s in season.
photo credit: Merritt Smail
We love Shore To Door’s backyard so much that we’d happily come here even if they served C+ seafood. It has a salty Key West personality, lots of mismatched seating, and there are two big white coolers full of beer you can help yourself to (just try to remember how many you drank when it comes time to pay). But luckily everything that the one- or two-person team here makes is basically the greatest hits album of Miami seafood—from simple things like fish dip and conch salad to the whole-fried yellowtail snapper that you’ll want to look right in the eye and whisper, “You’re delicious.”
It's all delicious, but it also just reinforces our belief that this kind of food was meant to be eaten precisely this way: atop random outdoor furniture, mostly using our fingers, on a Sunday afternoon when we have zero obligations.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Merritt Smail
Smoked Fish Dip
photo credit: Merritt Smail
Conch Salad
photo credit: Merritt Smail
Fish Bites
photo credit: Merritt Smail
Key West Shrimp
photo credit: Merritt Smail