Let's get one thing straight: there is no "best" oyster. There's only the one you're eating right now, cold and briny and glistening, with the sea still clinging to it — and whether it's this good.

That said, we have opinions. Strong ones. And after a summer (okay, several summers) of working our way down the coast from Maine to Connecticut, fork-free and unapologetically messy, we've put together the list of spots that earn a special trip. Not the ones that show up on every "best of" list. The ones we actually think about when we're not there.

New England didn't invent the oyster — nobody did, they've been around since long before we were — but it did fall for one, hard. The Wampanoag and other coastal peoples were harvesting oysters from the Damariscotta River and beyond for thousands of years before anyone thought to write it down; the shell middens along the Maine coast, some of them still visible today, are essentially ancient trash heaps of really good meals. By the 1800s, oysters had become the original New England fast food — cheap, plentiful, sold by the barrel on nearly every street corner in Boston and Portland. Then, as it does, the tide turned: overharvesting and pollution wiped out most of the wild beds by the early 1900s, and the oyster all but disappeared from the region for decades.

What brought it back wasn't nostalgia. It was farming. Starting in the 1970s, a handful of stubborn, cold-water-loving growers began cultivating oysters again, mostly in the clean, tidal rivers of Maine and New Hampshire — the Damariscotta, the Bellamy, the Great Bay. Turns out the very thing that makes New England's water so unpleasant to swim in — cold, fast tides, high salinity — is exactly what makes its oysters so good. Slow growth means thicker shells, deeper cups, and that clean, mineral snap that people drive hours for. Today, this stretch of coast is one of the most exciting oyster-growing regions in the country, and most of it is still family-run, one lease at a time.

There's a reason we're partial to oysters raw, in season, with nothing more than a squeeze of lemon. A cooked oyster is a lovely thing. A raw one, slurped straight from the shell at the peak of its season, is something closer to a small event. You get the cold first, then the brine, then something sweeter underneath it — and it's different at every farm, sometimes even every week, because an oyster tastes like the water it grew in. That sense of place — merroir, if you want the fancy word for it — is the whole point. You're not just eating a snack. You're tasting a specific river on a specific day.

The classic wisdom is to eat oysters in months with an "R" in them — September through April — and while modern refrigeration has made that more superstition than rule, there's still real truth to it: oysters are leaner and brinier in the colder months, plumper and slightly sweeter as the water warms in early fall. Late summer into fall, when New England's farms are in full swing, is about as good as it gets.

That being said, if you’re not eating them raw, grilling is the next best thing, and easier to do at home if you’re not a pro shucker. We’ve shared two of our favorite recipes below. Any way you eat ‘em you really can’t beat ‘em. The ocean’s done the hard work of making these a perfect food.

• Glidden Point Oyster Co. — Edgecomb Get here, rent a shucking knife, and sit right on the Damariscotta River while you work through a dozen. This is about as close to the source as it gets — the oysters are bottom-planted and slow-grown for years before they ever reach your hand, and you can taste the patience in them.
• Shuck Station — Newcastle Once an old gas station, now the most idiosyncratic raw bar on the river — the walls are covered in portraits of the local growers, and the menu reads like a map of the Damariscotta itself. Order a few varieties side by side and taste how much the water changes the flavor from farm to farm.
• Bar Harbor Oyster Company — Bar Harbor Home of the Bar Harbor Blonde — briny, buttery, deep-cupped, and famously easy to shuck, which matters more than you'd think after your fourth attempt. Farmed in the Mount Desert Narrows since 2014, these are the ones we bring up when someone asks what a "Maine oyster" tastes like.

• New England Superior Oyster — Dover Farmed at the mouth of the Bellamy River on land that's been in the same family for three generations, these oysters have a sweet, buttery finish that's a little different from the brinier stuff up in Maine — worth tasting back to back if you can.
• Swell Oyster Shack — Hampton Started by two surfers who'd rather be on the water than anywhere else, and it shows — this is New Hampshire's first grower-owned retail spot, right on the Hampton State Pier. Don't feel like shucking? They'll do it for you, on ice, with all the fixings.
• The Shuck Shack — Hampton Swell's sister spot, right in the middle of Hampton Beach. Grab a dozen and eat them on the sand — it doesn't get more New Hampshire than that.
• Row 34 — Portsmouth The name is a nod to the 34th row of oysters grown in Duxbury Bay, and the whole menu is built around that kind of specificity — a rotating list of oysters from small growers up and down the coast, plus a beer program serious enough to have its own following. Come for the raw bar, stay because the room is genuinely fun to be in.

• The Raw Bar at Island Creek — Duxbury This is the mothership. Island Creek practically reintroduced the country to the East Coast oyster in the 2000s, and this scenic patio right on Duxbury Bay is where you go to eat the flagship oyster steps from the water it grew in. Come for a dozen, stay for the tinned fish and rosé.
• 19 Raw Oyster Bar — Edgartown Tucked just off Main Street on Martha's Vineyard, this is the island's most serious raw bar — reclaimed wood, Edison bulbs, and the largest oyster list on the Vineyard. Get there in the shoulder season if you can; summer weekends get loud.
• Select Oyster Bar — Back Bay A tiny, brownstone-tucked oyster bar from a chef who used to run the kitchen at Neptune Oyster — which tells you everything about the level of precision here. The raw bar is a warm-up act for a genuinely excellent seafood menu, but don't skip it.
• Saltie Girl — Boston Part raw bar, part caviar bar, entirely glamorous. Order the raw bar tower and don't be shy about the tinned fish program while you're at it — it's one of the best in the city.
• Shuckers — Woods Hole A dockside institution since the early '80s, right where the ferry leaves for the Vineyard. Sit on the floating barge, order a dozen shucked to order, and let the harbor traffic entertain you.
• The Oyster Company — Dennis Their own Quivet Neck oysters, grown just offshore and shucked by the thousands every summer day. As local as it gets on the Cape, with the numbers to prove it — they've shucked millions since opening.
• Westport Sea Farms — Westport A working oyster farm with a bar attached — you're eating Riptides, Taber Points, and Beach Plums grown a stone's throw from where you're sitting, in quaint, historic Westport Point.
• Sea Level Oyster Bar — Salem Waterfront on Pickering Wharf, with an outdoor bar that opens right up to Salem Harbor. A great one for a long, unhurried oyster-and-sunset kind of evening.
• The Back Eddy — Westport Part clam shack, part serious kitchen, with a raw bar and grill right on the docks in summer. The name refers to a current that runs counter to the mainstream — which is basically the restaurant's whole philosophy.

• Matunuck Oyster Bar — Matunuck Perry Raso started as an oyster farmer digging littlenecks as a kid, and this restaurant — sitting right on Potter Pond, where the oysters are actually grown — is the payoff. Widely considered one of the best oyster bars in the country, and for good reason.
• Providence Oyster Bar — Greenwich and Federal Hill Rhode Island's own take on the classic upscale-casual oyster house, with a happy hour ($1 oysters) serious enough to build an evening around.
• Sunset Beach Oyster Bar — Jamestown Fresh, farm-grown oysters with a Portuguese accent, on an island that doesn't get nearly enough credit for its food scene. Worth the detour off the Newport bridge.
• Two Ten Oyster Bar and Grill — Wakefield A bayside spot on Salt Pond with a marble bar and a deck built for watching the boats come in. Their oysters are just as good chargrilled in garlic butter as they are raw — a rare double threat.

• S&P Oyster Restaurant and Bar — Mystic Thirty-plus years overlooking the Mystic River and the town's famous drawbridge, with a raw bar that spans the whole Eastern Seaboard. A reliable classic in every sense.
• Oyster Club — Mystic A farm-and-sea-to-table spot with one of the region's best raw bars and a menu that changes daily. Try to snag a seat in the Treehouse, their tucked-away outdoor space above the river.
• Shell & Bones Oyster Bar and Grill — New Haven Waterfront, award-winning, and unpretentious about it. A great one for a raw bar tower shared among a group before moving on to the rest of the seafood-and-steak menu.
• Fair Haven Oyster Co. — New Haven Mid-century design, gin-and-sherry-forward drinks, and expansive views over the Quinnipiac River. In summer, their seasonal outdoor space "The Pearl" is the move.

Raw is our favorite, but grilled oysters have their own pull — smoky, briny, a little decadent. Here's the classic, and a version we can't stop making.