🦀The Orlando seafood spot locals swear by: High Tide Harry’s

ORLANDO, Fla. – In a city built for visitors, it can be hard to find a restaurant that truly feels like it belongs to the people who live here. High Tide Harry’s has worn that claim proudly for decades — its tagline is “Where the locals eat” — and after 31 years, the busy dining room off South Semoran is proof it has earned it.

Inside, the dining room feels like a Florida seafood fever dream. An Orlando artist known for work with Crayola, Medieval Times and Give Kids The World covered the walls in bright, underwater murals. Brennan Heretick, owner Harry Hereticks son, jokes that it resembles Bikini Bottom from “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and the playful décor matches the over-the-top menu.

High Tide Harry’s has been repeatedly voted among Orlando’s best seafood restaurants by local publications, thanks to both classic and quirky offerings. The menu ranges from fried gator, frog legs and whole snapper served head-on to a long-running favorite: soft-shell crab, harvested during molting season and hand-breaded in-house. It’s tender enough to eat claw to tail, often dipped in house remoulade.

For Florida Foodie, the visit started with my “love language” — soup. The restaurant makes three soups in-house daily: New England clam chowder, a Cajun-style seafood gumbo and a house specialty called blue crab stew.

The gumbo layers andouille sausage, okra, crawfish and shrimp with a New Orleans-inspired heat, served over rice. The blue crab stew is their twist on she-crab soup or lobster bisque, loaded with flaky blue crab meat, potatoes and shredded whitefish. Many places skimp on seafood; here, every spoonful is full of it. The chowder is rich, creamy and buttery — pure comfort on a cool Central Florida day.

Regulars have their own “soup hack,” mixing the blue crab stew with the chowder into one bowl. The result tastes like a thick, briny, crab-forward chowder that feels like a seafood greatest hits.

Next up: a dozen charbroiled oysters, one of High Tide Harry’s top sellers. The restaurant also offers them raw, steamed and Rockefeller-style, but the charbroiled version is a standout. Each oyster is topped with house garlic butter, Parmesan and Old Bay, then finished until the cheese crisps on top. They arrive sizzling, drenched in butter and almost too easy to keep popping, especially with garlic bread to soak up every last bit.

The star of the menu, though, is Harry’s Cajun seafood boil, the restaurant’s No. 1 seller. The platter comes piled high with andouille sausage, red potatoes, corn on the cob, easy-peel shrimp, a full pound of crawfish and a choice of crab clusters. For our visit, the kitchen included both snow crab and Dungeness legs — big, meaty Alaskan clusters. Everything is tossed in a blend of garlic butter, Old Bay, Cajun seasoning and lemon pepper.

For newcomers, cracking the crab legs is part of the fun. Servers walk guests through where to crack and how to pull out a full piece of meat. It’s a little work, but the payoff — sweet crab dunked in warm garlic butter with a squeeze of lemon — is high reward. The boil is meant to be shared but often becomes a one-person feast with leftovers for later. Between sausage for “land lovers,” shellfish for seafood fans and vegetables soaking up the seasoning, it’s an all-in, roll-up-your-sleeves experience.

There’s one twist to the story: the general manager of this seafood institution is allergic to shellfish. Heretick can’t eat crab, shrimp or lobster and keeps Benadryl and an EpiPen on hand, relying on his team — and guests — for feedback.

He said the restaurant’s staying power comes from more than big portions. High Tide Harry’s focuses on cleanliness, consistent food and constant improvement, reading reviews and looking for ways to get “1% better” every day. Staff longevity, repeat regulars and multi-generational families are his biggest signs they’re doing something right.

In a city dominated by theme parks and chains, High Tide Harry’s feels like an Orlando original: a place where you’re as likely to see a local cracking crab as a visitor who heard about the boils and garlic-butter oysters from a friend. You may walk out smelling like seafood, but you’ll also leave feeling like you were part of something this community has loved for a long time.