If celebrating 30 years of restaurant survival didn’t warrant a long overdue visit to High Tide Harry’s, its Best of Orlando wins in such categories as Best Wait Staff, Best East Orlando Restaurant and Best Seafood Restaurant surely did. This year it even beat out some notable establishments in the Best Splurge category. Best Splurge! This restaurant, in all its Spongebobbery, bested the likes of Kabooki Sushi and Christner’s for the finest squander in town.
Barnacles!
But take one gander at High Tide Harry’s menu, as well as its facade, marquee, entryway and interior, and it becomes clear that crab is King (and Snow and Dungeness), and not cheap. A proper decapodal splurge will set you back $160, so we molted our expectations and contemplated options over complimentary hush puppies and cinnamon butter. Then it hit us. Why not consult High Tide Harry’s award-winning waitstaff?
Which we did and, in a matter of minutes, bibs were donned, shells were cracked and ravaged shreds of butter-dipped bits of the deep were strewn all over our chest protectors.
The delight and satisfaction of a perfect extraction of leg meat from this $80, 1.5-pound platter of King, Dungeness and Snow crab limbs was matched only by slicking the sweet flesh in garlic-scented melted fat. It had us feeling the “high” in High Tide Harry’s, so we kept it flowing with an order of whole soft-shell crab ($13), breaded and deep-fried into a deliciously petrified state. In hindsight, that crab would’ve worked better in sandwich form ($18) embellished by buttered brioche, lettuce, tomato, onion and remoulade.
“Is mayonnaise an instrument?” Yes, Patrick, it is. It’s an instrument of flavor in the aforementioned remoulade, the dip of choice for all fried wonders, including fried clam strips ($10), a go-to order for my better half on any visit to HTH. Mine? It’s the conch fritters ($10). The peppery breading and stellar fry makes for, yes, magic conch. And even as a raw oyster guy, I wholly endorse Harry’s charbroiled bivalves ($15 for six) topped with a holy trinity of garlic butter, parm and Old Bay before being broiled and served with garlic bread. Swing by on Wednesdays and these Connecticut beauties are $2 apiece.
In between bites, take a moment to behold the restaurant’s decor. This is themed festooning of the highest order, all borne from the mind of artist David Jordan, whom High Tide Harry’s owner Michael “Harry” Heretick says is “the closest person to Picasso that I know.”
Now on to Harry’s Key lime pie ($8). I like it tart and this one is anything but — it’s creamy, sweet and sits a bit heavy. I know the restaurant is proud of it, and I’m sure my assessment will have their claws out, but I won’t hold it against them.
Because even after 30 years, High Tide Harry’s is still a catch.
(High Tide Harry’s: 4645 S. Semoran Blvd.; 407-273-4422; hightideharrys.com)
Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Bluesky | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
This article appears in Sept. 10-16, 2025.