Hank’s Oyster Bar in Capitol Hill has served its soft-shell crab deep-fried alongside fries. (Photo courtesy of Hank’s Oyster Bar)

Dish of the Week: Soft Shell Crab

Where to find it: Convivial, Grillfish, Clyde’s, Casa Luca, Hank’s Oyster Bar, BlackSalt

When a dish is rare enough to appear on menus ever-so-fleetingly each year, you know it’s got to be worth its weight in culinary gold. Behold: the soft-shell crab, the precious gem of the early summer season.

Soft-shell crabs are a regional delicacy that beckon in late spring and early summer. These are your regular old blue crabs that molt each May or June, leaving their shells soft. They only stay in this state for a day or two, and must be caught within that short period. The entire body, exoskeleton and all, can be eaten. Whether lightly coated in breadcrumbs and sauteed or drowned in batter and deep-fried, they are a haute Maryland delicacy we recommend getting your claws on.

Chef Cedric Maupillier came to embrace soft-shell crab at his restaurant Convivial.

“In France, we don’t have this kind of crab. It’s a really local, East coast, highly-seasonal item,” he says. His annual soft shell dish is an homage to his French cooking, but adapted to his adopted home country. Imagine traditional Maryland crab cooked with a French accent.

This year’s dish, which Convivial began serving this week, begins with coating the crab in in Old Bay-spiked flour, because “in this area, there’s no crab without Old Bay,” Maupillier says. The crabs are sauteed and set on a French green lentil puree cooked in a smoked salmon stock, mimicking the umami and smoky flavor of bacon that often comes cooked with crab in this area. He adds traditional French green bean almondine on the side, finished with a drizzle of French mild red chili oil. The crab is is $17 in the dining room and $15 for happy hour at the bar.

At Grillfish, the chef is serving soft shells two ways. There’s an appetizer ($18) tower that starts with a mashed-potato base, atop which sits spinach, then a crab cake, and finally the fried soft-shell crab itself, balancing a tiara of mango salsa. The entree ($37) is two fried or sauteed crabs, served with rice pilaf, asparagus, and greens, with tomato beurre blanc.

At Grillfish, soft-shell crab tops a towering appetizer. (Photo courtesy of Grillfish)

The entire Clyde’s Restaurant Group will have soft shell crab on the specials menu during the season, but preparation varies by location and can change weekly. Clyde’s of Georgetown most recently prepared it fried as a main course ($16). The crabs are set over a salad of shaved asparagus, pickled ramps, radishes, fingerling potato wedges, and ramp aïoli, picking up lots of late-spring flavors. At Clyde’s of Gallery Place, it arrives tempura-style ($16), served with crispy potatoes, quinoa, asparagus, carrots, radishes, lemon, and green garlic aïoli.

A new soft-shell crab dish will also roll onto the Casa Luca dinner menu this Friday ($30), dredged in cornmeal and crisped in the pan. It’s served over a summer succotash of corn, pickled red onion, garlic, basil, and tomatoes. The main features one “whale” crab (whale refers to a soft shell crab that is 5 ½ inches or more). “We want to highlight the crab with minimal alteration so that the flavor can be fully enjoyed,” Casa Luca executive chef Phil Marzelli says. “Corn is the primary accompaniment and shines in the crab and the succotash.”

All four Hank’s Oyster Bar locations serve soft shell crab every softie season, and each location prepares them differently. For example, last week at the Dupont Circle location, soft-shell crabs were offered as an appetizer ($17) served over coleslaw with chive butter; and as an entree ($32) over Old Bay fries.

Feeling lucky? BlackSalt changes up its soft shell preparation daily. On a recent evening, the dish was prepared with Southeast Asian inspiration ($20): lightly tempura-fried over a Thai coconut curry, papaya salad, and roasted peanuts.