Best seafood restaurant

With nine locations in greater Boston alone, Legal Sea Foods is the 800-pound gorilla of the local restaurant scene. Does it throw its weight around a little in dealing with the fishing industry? Probably. As the beneficiary, bent over a fragrant bowl of steamers or cracking off a gorgeous lobster claw, do you care? Probably not. What's more, unlike most chains, Legal doesn't stop at the obvious and popular; it takes some culinary risks, as with the superb walnut-studded bluefish pâté or the selection of Ayurvedic-inspired dishes. And it also resists the corporate conformist mentality by giving its chefs leeway to vary the menu somewhat from branch to branch, for further fishy flights of fancy. This is one gorilla, then, you can embrace without fear.

Take the name with a grain of sea salt -- Jasper White's Summer Shack is a veritable depot, open year-round, for all things piscine and crustacean. The enormous dining hall in Cambridge is part kitsch, part industrial chic, with a massive lobster tank-and-steam-kettle system dominating the colorful, picnic-table-filled space. White is actually a foremost lobster expert, and his clambake dinner (combining lobster, mussels, clams, potatoes, chorizo, and corn) is gaining legendary status. But he also excels, perhaps more than any of Boston's name chefs, at mixing up the lowbrow with the highbrow; the menu juxtaposes tomalley crostini and pan-roasted lobster with corn dogs and alphabet soup, and does so with far more joy than irony. A new Back Bay location, meanwhile, lets you shack up with Jasper right here in the city.

Legal Sea Foods, multiple locations. Jasper White's Summer Shack, 50 Dalton Street, Boston, (617) 867-9955; 149 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, (617) 520-9500.