Moëca

"An inventive seafood restaurant offering unique dishes like mussels cooked in Basque sauce served over sourdough bread." - Erika Adams

"Boston is bursting with seafood — lobster rolls, scallop crudo, oyster happy hours, you name it — but seafood that bucks traditional preparations? That’s a bit less common. Enter Moëca, the younger sibling to the perpetually booked-out Italian restaurant Giulia just down the street on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. This is where you go for craggy, buttermilk-fried monkfish showered with sesame seeds and a pool of tamarind hot sauce on the side. This is where you go for steamed mussels served not in a bowl but over a whopping hunk of sourdough soaked in a Basque pil pil sauce. Seafood takes unexpected, surprising forms at Moëca, and it is well worth the ride." - Eater Staff

"Reservations are slightly easier to come by at this seafood-focused second act from the team behind perpetually booked-out Giulia just down the street. Set the tone for a fun night out by starting with an order of unicorn oysters topped with an icy tomato granita, and be sure to stick around for something sweet as pastry chef Renae Connolly is one of Boston’s top dessert talents." - Celina Colby, Dana Hatic, Erika Adams

"Renae Connolly is a pastry authority in Boston’s dining scene. For the uninitiated, start with the smoked vanilla mascarpone gelato with spicy caramel popcorn at her current home base, the inventive seafood spot Möeca. A stunning alchemy of savory, spicy, sweet, and smoky notes all come together in this bowl and it is a slam-dunk finisher to the evening." - Nathan Tavares, Erika Adams

"From skewered, barbecued mussels to buttermilk-fried hunks of monkfish, Moëca’s is very good at re-examining traditional New England seafood fare through a slightly different lens. The restaurant is run by the same team behind nearby pasta powerhouse Giulia, which means it’d be a mistake to overlook Moëca’s pasta section, including the lobster spaghetti with fermented chili and the salt cod-stuffed ravioli. Whatever you do, don’t skip dessert." - Erika Adams