Savor Scout › Food guides › Clam chowder
How to find good clam chowder
Clam chowder is one of the oldest American dishes, and the bad version — thick, floury, with a few rubbery bits of clam — is so common that people forget how good the real thing is.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Plenty of clams — Chopped quahogs or whole littlenecks you can see in every spoonful.
- Not too thick — Good New England chowder is creamy but pourable. A spoon standing up means a flour paste.
- Salt pork or bacon — A base of rendered pork gives the chowder its smoky depth.
- Potatoes that hold their shape — Diced, tender, not dissolved.
- Made from scratch with clam broth — Fresh clams steamed for their liquor taste of the sea. Canned base tastes of salt.
What to order
- New England clam chowder — Cream-based, the classic.
- Rhode Island chowder — Clear broth, if you find it.
- Manhattan chowder — Tomato-based, a different dish entirely.
- A bread bowl — In San Francisco, with sourdough.
- Oyster crackers — On the side.
Where to find Clam chowder
Clam chowder is mostly found at seafood restaurants, so that is where to look. Open listings put 20,139 of them across the US, and these are the cities and campuses with the most.
Cities with the most
New York, NY 254 Houston, TX 209 Chicago, IL 199 Philadelphia, PA 154 Los Angeles, CA 153 Jacksonville, FL 132 Dallas, TX 126 San Diego, CA 120
Campuses with the most within a mile
NYU 61 New School University 57 Touro University 53 Emerson 53 The Graduate Center 53 FIT 51
A few to start with
- Terrace Fish and Chips — New York, NY
178 Church St, New York - Massa's — Houston, TX
1160 Smith St, Houston - Coco's Famous Fried Lobster — Chicago, IL
426 S Clark St, Chicago - Oyster House — Philadelphia, PA
1516 Sansom St, Philadelphia - The Oyster Gourmet — Los Angeles, CA
Grand Central Market, 317 S Broadway, Los Angeles - River & Post — Jacksonville, FL
1000 Riverside Ave #100, Jacksonville
Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.
How Savor Scout looks for it
The search reads for made from scratch, lots of clams and not too thick, and looks for seafood shacks and fish houses, where chowder is a point of pride rather than a soup of the day.
Looking in a particular city?
Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Houston, TX
- Philadelphia, PA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Antonio, TX
- San Diego, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Jacksonville, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Columbus, OH
- Charlotte, NC
- Fort Worth, TX
- Detroit, MI
- El Paso, TX
- Memphis, TN
- Seattle, WA
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Baltimore, MD
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Louisville, KY
- Portland, OR
- Las Vegas, NV
- Milwaukee, WI
- Albuquerque, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Fresno, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Kansas City, MO
- Mesa, AZ
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Atlanta, GA
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Omaha, NE
- Raleigh, NC
- Miami, FL
- Oakland, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Cleveland, OH
- Wichita, KS
- Arlington, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Honolulu, HI
- Aurora, CO
- Anaheim, CA
- Santa Ana, CA
- St. Louis, MO
- Riverside, CA
- Corpus Christi, TX