Lunch at Captain Ihab

Visited on February 21, 2026 for Lunch / Phone photos at bottom of review.

Captain Ihab’s is a tiny spot tucked along Main Street in Farmingdale, a Long Island town. From the outside it reads like a neighborhood restaurant, but the second you step in, you get a different signal: it’s clean, carefully kept, and thoughtfully put together. 
A lot of seafood places at this size lean into the “cheap-and-cheerful” cliché—the red-and-white checked tablecloth vibe, loud décor, and the sense that the goal is to drop a basket of fried food in front of you as fast as possible. This isn’t that. It’s small and intimate, with wood tones and warm lighting that make it feel like someone actually cared about the room.
The ceiling is tall, but they’ve visually brought it down by adding a wooden frame system where the lighting hangs. One of the fixtures is the kind of detail you notice without trying: a glowing bulb that feels almost sculptural, throwing warm, textured light across the space. Around the room are a few mounted fish—tasteful, not a theme-park overload—just enough to keep you reminded that yes, you’re here for seafood.
We started with hummus and bread, and even that set the tone. The hummus wasn’t the usual thick, grainy, garlic-forward version that shows up as an afterthought. This was creamy—legit creamy—with a more refined, milder flavor.
And the bread mattered. It wasn’t the usual situation where you run out of pita halfway through and end up asking for more. They gave an ample amount from the start—pita cut into neat triangles, served warm and lightly toasted. It stayed soft rather than turning brittle or crispy, which made it perfect for scooping. It did exactly what good bread is supposed to do here: stay neutral, add texture, and let the hummus sing. In our case, it also came as a complimentary starter, which immediately nudged the value meter in the right direction.
Then we shared a seafood bisque, and this is where the kitchen tipped its hand.
It was outstanding—shrimp, mussels, and clam, not piled in to show off, just enough to make every spoonful feel like it belonged. But the real surprise was the flavor. There was a gentle sweetness and a different note I couldn’t place at first—something warm and aromatic that I’ve never had in a seafood bisque before. Then it clicked: star anise.
That one decision changed the whole bowl. It didn’t turn the bisque into a gimmick; it gave it depth and a quiet elegance. You don’t do that by accident. That’s a chef understanding flavor. And at roughly $9, it tastes way above its price point.
Before the fish and chips landed, we tried the shrimp and fish tacos—one of each—and they deserve to be part of the story.
They’re a generous size and built the right way: mango, cilantro, avocado, and seafood that’s treated with the same care as everything else that came out of the kitchen. Bright, fresh, and balanced. The sweetness from the mango plays against the richness of the avocado, and the cilantro keeps the whole thing from getting heavy. They’re a bit sloppy to eat, but they’re worth the mess. I think they were around $9 as well, but I’d rather confirm off the menu than guess—because if that number is correct, it’s borderline absurd value.
Then came the fish and chips—and it was nothing like the standard expectation.
Most places treat fish and chips like a construction project: thick batter, heavy fry, a crust so overbuilt it becomes the main event. The fish is almost incidental, sealed inside an enclosure. Captain Ihab’s went the opposite direction.
This was beer-battered, no question—you can taste it. The beer gives the crust that familiar, slightly yeasty flavor you want with fried fish. But the coating was thin. Not “barely there” thin—more like deliberately engineered thin. The first bite didn’t feel like chewing through a shell. It felt like the crust simply dissolved. If you want a weird-but-accurate comparison, it was almost cotton-candy light: it hit your mouth, crackled for a second, and then vanished.
And that’s where the dish turned from “good” to “different.”
Because the batter wasn’t a separate layer wrapped around the fish. It was part of the bite. Instead of feeling like “shell first, fish second,” it ate like an ensemble—crust and cod arriving together, balanced. Not so heavy that it overpowered the fish, and not so light that it wasn’t noticed. Just the right amount, complementing the flavors instead of masking them.
Once the crust got out of its own way, you were left with the fish—and the cod was perfectly cooked. Soft, buttery, and moist in a way that doesn’t read as “wet,” but as genuinely fresh cod treated with restraint. It practically melted as you ate it, the way fish only does when the timing is dead-on and the product is excellent to begin with.
Here’s the important distinction: this isn’t “pub fish and chips,” and it’s definitely not the all-you-can-eat buffet / fish-fry-night version either. There’s nothing wrong with those categories when that’s what you want—but this is the first-night / first-date fish and chips. Nicely portioned, clean, refined, and completely unexpected for what the dish usually is.
It comes with steak fries, plus ketchup and tartar sauce. Honestly, you don’t need tartar sauce here—the fish stands on its own. But if you do add it, it enhances the whole thing. It changes the profile a bit, but in a good way.
And here’s the part that really doesn’t make sense—in the best way: the fish and chips is $18. For the quality on that plate, that’s an unbelievable price. You’re not paying for a greasy mound of filler and a thick batter shell; you’re paying for properly cooked, clearly fresh cod with a beer batter that’s integrated into the bite, plus steak fries and sauces. At a lot of places, this would be a $26–$32 “signature” item dressed up with marketing. Here it’s just… done right, and priced like they want you to come back.
I need to put my bias on the table, because seafood is the one category where I’m not a casual customer.
For more than twenty years I’ve made the annual run to Ogunquit, Maine, and when I go, I don’t order a “lobster dinner.” I order the real thing—three to four pounds. My first trip up there was in the mid-1970s. Maine set my baseline. The chowders, the haddock, cod, pollock, clams—done right, consistently, for decades.
I eat lobster rolls regularly. I’ve had them all over the country, in every style people swear is “the best.” And at a certain point I stopped ordering lobster in New York altogether, because once you’ve had it up there, most local versions just don’t hold up.
Same with fish and chips. I’ve had it in England. I’ve had it all over the Northeast, and up into Canada. So when I say this, I’m not reaching for a dramatic line:
Captain Ihab’s fish and chips is the best I’ve had in about thirty years.
What makes it stand out isn’t just that it’s good. It’s that it’s different. It’s comfort food that somehow got a level-up treatment—lighter, cleaner, more precise—without losing what makes fish and chips satisfying in the first place.
I’ve eaten enough seafood to know the odds. I still can’t resist trying every seafood place I can, because every now and then you find one that quietly resets your expectations. Captain Ihab’s is one of those.
Captain Ihab’s feels like a small place that’s quietly playing above its weight class. It’s intimate, clean, and the food has that “somebody in the kitchen knows what they’re doing” fingerprint from the first course onward. If you’re anywhere near Farmingdale and seafood is your thing, put it on the list.