A raw bar is a small restaurant or a bar within a restaurant where live shellfish are shucked and served. Raw bars typically offer a variety of raw and cooked seafood and shellfish that is served cold. Seafood-based dishes may also be offered, and additional, non-seafood foods may also be part of the fare. Raw bars may offer alcoholic beverages such as oyster shooters, as well as wine and sake that is paired with various foods. Additional accompaniments may include condiments, sauces and foods such as lemon and lime. Several restaurants in the United States offer raw bars, some of which are seasonal.
Raw oysters on the half-shell served with cocktail sauce and mignonette sauce
A plateau de fruits de mer
A raw bar at a Shanahan's restaurant
The hard clam, also known as the round clam, hard-shell clam, or the quahog, is an edible marine bivalve mollusk that is native to the eastern shores of North America and Central America from Prince Edward Island to the Yucatán Peninsula. It is one of many unrelated edible bivalves that in the United States are frequently referred to simply as clams. Older literature sources may use the systematic name Venus mercenaria; this species is in the family Veneridae, the venus clams.
Hard clam
Left valve interior of Mercenaria mercenaria.
An old quahog shell that has been bored (producing Entobia) and encrusted after the death of the clam
Steamed clams