Savor Scout › Food guides › Crawfish
How to find good crawfish
Crawfish is a seasonal food, best from about February to June, and a good boil is all about live crawfish, a well-seasoned pot, and a long soak afterwards so the spice gets inside the shell.
When is crawfish season?
Crawfish season generally runs from about January or February through June, peaking in March, April and May, when the crawfish are largest and most plentiful. Outside the season many restaurants serve frozen crawfish, which is fine in étouffée but noticeably worse when boiled whole.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Live crawfish, purged — Fresh, live crawfish rinsed before boiling. Tails should be firm and curled — a straight tail means it was dead before cooking.
- A proper soak — Good boils let the crawfish soak in the seasoned water after cooking. That is where the flavour comes from.
- Seasoning you taste inside — Spice on the shell is easy; spice in the meat takes a soak.
- Corn, potatoes, garlic and sausage in the pot — The extras soak up seasoning and are half the point.
- Sold by the pound — Fresh boiled crawfish is priced by weight and the price changes through the season.
What to order
- Boiled crawfish by the pound — Three pounds is a normal meal for one.
- Crawfish étouffée — Year-round, over rice.
- Crawfish pie or bread — Louisiana snacks.
- Boiled corn and potatoes — From the pot.
- Fried crawfish tails — If available.
Where to find Crawfish
Crawfish is mostly found at seafood restaurants and Cajun and Creole restaurants, so that is where to look. Open listings put 23,308 of them across the US, and these are the cities and campuses with the most.
Cities with the most
New Orleans, LA 317 Houston, TX 303 New York, NY 273 Chicago, IL 223 Los Angeles, CA 177 Philadelphia, PA 165 Dallas, TX 155 Baton Rouge, LA 140
Campuses with the most within a mile
NYU 65 New School University 60 The Graduate Center 58 Touro University 57 Emerson 55 FIT 54
A few to start with
- Public Service — New Orleans, LA
311 Baronne St, New Orleans - Massa's — Houston, TX
1160 Smith St, Houston - 1803 Nyc — New York, NY
82 Reade St, New York - Coco's Famous Fried Lobster — Chicago, IL
426 S Clark St, Chicago - The Oyster Gourmet — Los Angeles, CA
Grand Central Market, 317 S Broadway, Los Angeles - Oyster House — Philadelphia, PA
1516 Sansom St, Philadelphia
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 live, in-season and Louisiana-style boils, and takes the time of year into account — out of season it leans toward étouffée and Cajun kitchens rather than boil spots.
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
Related food guides
Seafood boil, Cajun food, Gumbo