Smithtown Seafood is a small downtown eatery in Lexington, Kentucky, featuring great meals and access to West Sixth Brewing!
The Holly Hill family of restaurants in central Kentucky includes several of our favorite eateries in the area. There's Zim's Cafe and its partner bar The Thirsty Fox, the Southern-inspired Honeywood, and most recently for us, Smithtown Seafood.
Although it's not the easiest spot to find, the food is absolutely worth searching out. Here's what you need to know!
Finding Smithtown Seafood
Smithtown Seafood is (sort of literally) a hole in the wall inside the West Sixth Brewing location in Lexington.
It's located past the West Sixth bar and the gift store area at the far end of the building.
West Sixth is a Kentucky brand with multiple taprooms throughout the state, but this is its original location! So visiting the seafood place is a great time to also check out the beers.
Interested in the local beer scene? In Lexington, we also recommend visits to Mirror Twin Brewing, Lexington Brewing & Distilling Co., and Mr. Brews Taphouse.
To order your seafood, you can either go for service at the counter, or grab a table and use the QR code attached to it.
Within the same block is FoodChain, a nonprofit that works to demonstrate sustainable food systems. Their indoor aquaponics farm right next door supplies leafy greens, herbs, and tilapia to Smithtown Seafood. It's hard to get more local than that!
On the Menu
We stopped in on a Friday evening and ordered the crab cakes with remoulade sauce and the beer mussels. The lady at the counter said we got lucky, because the crab cakes are almost always sold out. (I soon saw why!)
We got a number and went to wait at a table in the West Sixth part of the building.
While we waited, we got a couple of beers to go with our meal. (Not sure what would go well with your meal? The Smithtown menu says they offer beer pairing suggestions.)
Not long after we sat down, the food arrived! The crab cakes were SPECTACULAR: full of flaky crab and not dense inside from breading.
The sauce was delicious and spicy, just like I was hoping. (They also have non-spicy sauce options if you need.)
The mussels were also delicious, and I appreciated how tender they were (not chewy and overcooked at all).
There are both indoor and outdoor seats available.
Besides local beer, you can also get local ice cream here (Crank & Boom). So if you want to experience several Lexington legends all at once, I really can't think of a better way to do it.
If you’re in the area, this is definitely a somewhat hidden gem! I can't wait to go back.
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