Red's Best Fish Market

"Located inside the Boston Public Market, Red’s Best is particularly seasonally and locally focused, which means swordfish in the summer and redfish in the winter. While Red’s does ship nationally for free (lobster tails for Christmas, Mom?), we prefer to stop in at the Public Market location, where we can pick up everything we need for a scallop feast at home after finishing a tasty chowder lunch from their on-site kitchen." - joel ang, tanya edwards

"The open secret of Boston’s seafood scene is that many of the best restaurants in the city pull their hauls from Red’s. Tucked into the back of Boston Public Market , it has a long counter with a handwritten menu that showcases the raw fish, grab-and-go salads, and sushi, as well as the New England classics fried up in the back. Here, a simple-is-better philosophy sets the bar high: the scallops in the Day Boat Sea Scallop Roll ($17), for example, are lightly tossed in flour, fried, and popped into a grilled, buttered bun with tartar sauce. On the first Sunday of every month, Red's offers buck-a-shuck oysters—go for those before digging into the rest of the menu. Industry folks love Red’s because it educates customers, highlighting lesser-known fish species that are big on flavor but low on name recognition." - Elizabeth Wellington, Andrew Sessa

"Apparently, a lot of the best seafood restaurants in Boston use Red’s Best as their wholesaler. That should give you some incentive to head to the counter they operate in the Public Market. It’s primarily a place to buy filets and shellfish to cook yourself, but they have a small selection of things like lobster rolls, crab cakes, and stuffed quahogs that, if you work in the area, you should be eating for lunch at least once a week." - Dan Secatore