Just because a restaurant is located smack dab in the middle of the Prairies doesn’t mean Edmonton diners can’t have access to fresh and tasty seafood. It just means more legwork for Nick Crudo, who runs the family owned 50-seat Black Pearl Seafood Bar. Crudo beelined his way to Halifax to find dedicated seafood suppliers and returned with containers filled with nautical materials recovered from old boats, including a brass bell once belonging to an Italian ship, to an English compass and a long fishers’ net draped above the dining room. In addition to designing the 1,400-sq.-ft.-space himself and getting it off the ground with a budget of $200,000, the 30-year restaurant veteran provided the culinary direction of the restaurant, which offers an ever-revolving menu of fresh seafood focused on lobsters, clams, mussels, oysters, swordfish and yellowfin tuna. Its most popular dish is snowcrab with homemade jerk sauce, featuring scotch bonnet peppers ($27).
10132 104 St., Edmonton
