Who serves the best crab cakes in Baltimore? The top burrito in San Francisco? Welcome to Taste of the Town, where we call on a local expert to share the best versions of one of their city’s most iconic foods. Here, Christina Tkacik, food reporter at ‘The Baltimore Banner,’ shares her picks for the city's best crab cakes.
Nothing unites Marylanders like side-eyeing crab cakes from other parts of the country. If it’s breaded, deep-fried, and shaped like a hockey puck, if it has red pepper or corn, if it’s drenched in sauce or comes with ketchup, it’s not a Maryland crab cake. If you ask anyone around here, they’ll tell you the real deal is lightly packed, rounded like a softball, minimally seasoned, and downright massive. For this otherworldly delicacy, we locals don’t bat an eye at paying upward of $30.
The best ones are defined by simplicity, as if nothing more than sea foam holds together the tender flakes of meat. The seasoning of choice is Old Bay, a Baltimore product almost as beloved as blue crab. Generous chunks of crab should dot each cake like mosaic tiles. Made right, a perfectly broiled, golden exterior yields to the fork and immediately falls apart. Perhaps most importantly, the crab must taste fresh and sweet, with nary a hint of fishiness. While you can find crab cakes at some restaurants year-round, they are most delicious from spring to late fall, during blue crab season.
By some accounts the crab cake has its origins in post–Civil War Baltimore, when formerly enslaved people made a living selling them as street food. Today you will find them at soul food spots, dive bars, and fine dining restaurants alike. While locals believe the Chesapeake Bay is home to the tastiest crabs on the planet, dwindling populations mean that most local crab cakes are made with at least a portion of meat from Venezuela or Indonesia. Regardless, a crab cake made here is almost certain to be better than one made anywhere else. These are our picks for Baltimore’s finest.
Jumbo or Bust?
Jumbo lump is the most sought-after and priciest part of the creature, and a single crab provides just two of the biggest chunks of meat connected to the swimming fins. A few decades ago Baltimore restaurants began offering crab cakes made exclusively from jumbo lump, and now most diners believe that it’s jumbo lump or bust. But that gets expensive. It takes an entire bushel of crabs—around 60 to 80—to produce just one pound of jumbo lump crabmeat. People who know crabs will tell you that when it comes to pure flavor, cakes made with regular lump can be just as good, if not better. Particularly, of course, if it’s locally sourced.
Koco’s Pub
4301 Harford Rd.
Photograph by SHAN Wallace
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