Catching Tail: The Truth About Key West Lobster

If you’re from up north, you might look at our lobsters and say, “WTFH?!?” They aren’t usually red, they don’t have claws, and they look very little like the lobsters you know and love.

In Florida, we have warm-water crustaceans that are properly called the Caribbean Spiny Lobster. They go by other names, of course. In some islands, they are called crawfish, and many locals here just call them bugs. They sometimes get called Florida Lobster, but this sort of ignores that they live everywhere in the Caribbean and Bahamas.

Instead of big claws for defense, the carapace of the Spiny Lobster has—any guesses? Oh, come on—are you even paying attention? Spines! It has spines, people!

How else are they different from their cold-water family? It has little to do with them, but lobster rolls aren’t a thing here. We still like butter on our lobster, but putting it on stale bread and selling it to you for $45 just isn’t our style. Also, pronunciation-wise, the “R” in Florida Lobster is not silent.

The best eating part of the Florida Spiny Lobster is its tail. In fact, it’s usual for the rest of the poor critter to be discarded. Some locals like to pick the flesh out of the antenna and legs, but there just isn’t much there, and it’s hard to get to. 

Like other shellfish, it’s common for Florida Lobster to be boiled or steamed. Grilling the tails is also a popular preparation method. You can eat the grilled meat with a little Cajun butter, or mix it with pasta for a scampi, or enjoy a Cuban-style lobster creole, or chop it and make a lobster salad or lobster mac and cheese, or…well, the possibilities are pretty endless and tasty.

Florida lobster tastes slightly less sweet than New England lobster. It’s somewhere between cold-water lobster and shrimp, with a touch of crab and a little like Louisiana crawfish. Maybe it’s best to try it and let us know what you think. It’s delicious, anyhow, and lots of folks seem to think so.