I was supposed to have dinner with the owner of one of our new accounts near the south shore of Boston when I was out in New England a few weeks ago, but he got hung up on a job he was doing in Nashville and couldn't make it back in time to meet with me. Suddenly with an open night on the docket, I started to look around at restaurants in the suburbs south of Boston. I was looking for a seafood place (naturally, since I was in New England for a week) and one sort of jumped out at me - Legal Sea Foods. There was a Legal Sea Foods location not far from hotel so I headed over there for the evening.
In 1904, Russian-immigrant Harry Berkowitz opened a grocery store in the Inman Square neighborhood in Cambridge, MA, near Harvard University. He named his store Legal Cash Market signifying to his customers that he gave out Legal Stamps - one of the first types of trading stamps that grocery stores have out for years over the first 3/4's of the 20th century. The grocery store was the core of the neighborhood for over 40 years before chain stores came into Cambridge and started to drain away customers from the Berkowitz family grocery store.
In 1950, Harry's son George opened fish market next to the family's grocery store and called it Legal Sea Foods. It featured a counter of fresh-caught fish as well as making available fish and chips that were sold as a to-go item. Legal Sea Foods became a favorite place for people in and around Cambridge to buy fresh seafood.
In 1968, George Berkowitz - along with sons Marc and Roger - opened the first Legal Sea Foods sit-down restaurant next to their seafood store. Featuring a choice of fried or broiled fish all served on paper plates in a no-frills atmosphere where patrons sat communal-style on picnic tables, Legal Sea Foods began to gain a following of faithful seafood fans around the greater Boston area.
Pictured right - Marc, George and Roger Berkowitz in front of the Newton, MA Legal Sea Foods restaurant circa 1979. Photo courtesy Boston.com
A second Legal Sea Foods opened in Boston's wealthy Chestnut Hill neighborhood in 1975 featuring more of a restaurant setting with individual tables, and a third location opened in Newton, MA in 1979. In 1980, a fire destroyed the original Legal Sea Foods location in Cambridge. But later that year, the Berkowitz's opened their flag ship location in the Boston Park Plaza building in downtown Boston. The first stop for clam chowder that many tourists wanted to make was at Legal Sea Foods. And since 1981, Legal Sea Foods clam chowder has been served at every presidential inauguration in Washington D.C.
Roger Berkowitz took over as the CEO from his father in 1992. Under Roger Berkowitz, Legal Sea Foods began an aggressive expansion. The first of now four Legal Sea Foods locations opened in Boston's Logan Airport in 1994. From there, Legal Sea Foods opened more locations around the greater Boston area. Today, there are 24 Legal Sea Foods - mainly in Massachusetts, with two in the Washington D.C. area, and one each in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. A 25th Legal Sea Foods - and the first one outside of the Eastern Time Zone - is slated to open in Chicago's Marina City later this year. In addition to the Legal Sea Foods restaurants, the Berkowitz family also operated other concepts such as Legal Test Kitchen, Legal C Bar, Legal Fish Bowl (all of which were victims of the pandemic), and Legal Sea Bar, in addition to a handful of other Legal concept restaurants.
In 2020, Berkowitz sold Legal Sea Foods to PPX Hospitality Brands, a Boston-based restaurant group that also owned Smith & Wollensky steakhouses with locations in such places as Boston, New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, London and Taiwan, as well as Strega Italiano with two locations in the greater Boston area. PPX Hospitality is looking to expand Legal Sea Foods to possibly Las Vegas, Florida and possible international locations in the future.
The Legal Sea Foods in Hingham is located in the Derby Street Shops just off Massachusetts State Highway 3, the expressway that takes you down to Plymouth and then on to where the road meets up with U.S. Highway 6 that goes out to Cape Cod. It's located on the west side of the shopping center situated between a Talbots and a Williams-Sonoma. (see map) I was able to find a parking spot in front of the restaurant.
I wouldn't call the decor elegant at Legal Sea Foods, but more of an upscale modern. Circular LED lighting hung in a lounge area next to the bar complete with a large fish mural on the back wall. There were actually two bars - a high top rectangular bar, and a low-slung long bar in the lounge. Music by artists such as Chris Stapleton, Dave Matthews, and Hootie & the Blowfish played in the background while I was in there.
The front dining area featured a line of booths along the wall and double-sided banquette seats with tables in the middle of the room. The atmosphere was light and comfortable.
There was a back dining area that was closed off that evening. There was a partition that separated the two dining areas. The back dining area had a wall of banquette seating with 4-seater tables interspersed in the area.
I ended up seated at the high-top bar up toward the front of the restaurant. The bartender that evening was Thomas, a good guy who made sure that I was noticed and taken care of from the start. I asked him what hazy IPA they had to offer on tap and he said they had the Legally Hazy IPA from Night Shift Brewing in Everett, MA located just north of Boston.
I wasn't really that hungry as I had a pretty big lunch earlier in the day, but I knew I needed something. Thomas has provided me with a menu and I took a quick look to see what they had for appetizers. They had sushi and specialty rolls on the menu, but then I got to thinking, "Why wouldn't I just go to a sushi bar?" They had fish tacos as part of their "Starters" menu, but I wasn't certain I was looking for fish tacos that evening. Main entrees included swordfish cooked with 7 spices, a chili-encrusted yellowfin tuna, linguini and clams, and grilled scallops from the coast of Maine. I was told that Legal Sea Foods shift their chefs around the various locations in the greater Boston area to offer each place a different interpretation of what the restaurant chain has to offer.
I was sort of in a food funk by this point in my trip to New England, but I still wanted to get some seafood. I ended up getting some oysters-on-the-half shell and to go along with them I got a bowl of the lobster bisque. The lobster bisque was very good - it was creamy to the taste and literally melted across the tongue. The only problem was that there didn't seem to be much lobster meat in the bisque. Nonetheless, it was a very tasty start.
The oysters were also a bit disappointing. Actually, nearly every place I had oysters-on-the-half while I was in New England didn't seem to have very meaty oysters. A couple of the oysters that were served to me were pretty small and didn't have a lot of meat to them. But two of the other oysters were possibly the biggest of the ones I had while out East. Still, I didn't think the oysters at Legal Sea Foods were that great of a value.
I was still sort of hungry and I was leaning toward the blackened yellowfin tuna filet, but when I told Thomas that I was up in the air even with that choice. He said, "If you're interested in the blackened tuna, you need to get the Tuna Tataki." It was on the starters part of the menu and he said it was the best thing they had on the menu at Legal Sea Foods.
He explained that they blacken a two ounce tuna filet with wasabi and slice the tuna. Then they add a sesame chili vinaigrette and a citrus soy sauce and then given a quick hit with a heat gun. It's finished off with a seaweed salad and ginger on the side. The presentation was excellent and so was the taste of the tuna slices. With each bite it was a taste explosion. I think it was definitely more than a two ounce filet, but by the time I was finished I was satiated. Thomas was correct - even without trying anything else on the menu, I'm not certain there would be anything better than the Tuna Tataki.
I was a bit apprehensive going to a Legal Sea Foods given that it's a chain. But it's mostly a regional chain and seems to be still popular with some of the locals. And there was nothing bad about my visit to Legal Sea Foods. The lobster bisque - even though it was light on lobster meat - was very good, but the oysters were a bit disappointing. However, the Tuna Tataki was one of the best seafood items I've ever eaten. I know I had options for seafood along the south seashore of Boston, but I was more than happy with what I got at Legal Sea Foods.
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