Island Cuisine

We ate well in the Keys, including the two local specialties: conch and shrimp. Conch, a chewy white shellfish with little natural flavor, comes many ways, including in fritters and ceviche, but the best we found was "cracked conch" in which they cut and flatten it into a schnitzel, fry it in bread crumbs and put it on a sandwich.

Key West "pink shrimp" are everywhere and are, indeed, fresh and sweet. But you do have to make sure to ask if they're local.

Among the restaurants we visited, this was probably our favorite, but nearly every meal we had was good.

The local dessert, key lime pie, comes in many different textures (from soft custard to more flan-like) and with many different toppings (meringue, whipped cream, plain). But the local favorite, and one which we actually decided was surprisingly good, was this: