LEGAL SEAFOOD,

Making a go of a restaurant is hard enough, but doing it with seafood is the hardest, because the cooking couldn't be trickier. Grill a swordfish steak a minute too long, and you're serving cat food. But as a recent visit to the Legal Sea Food restaurant near the airport proved, seafood joints can more than survive, they can thrive, by doing things right. Over the years, Legal's main trick has been to assure freshness with its seafood quality-control lab outside of Boston. They also get their pick of the catch by force of their high-volume purchases (as in 100 tons a week). As a result, Legal claims to offer more varieties of fish than any other restaurant in the nation -- a boast reflected on its menu, where grilled Arctic char is listed alongside the more common mahi-mahi (both $15.95). Out of all the choices, though, my dining companion's seafood potpie ($13.95) is definitely on my agenda for a future visit. The top crust was flaky and delicious in a lobster broth (mercifully unthickened) that was tangy with sherry. The vegetables were not cooked to mush and had plenty of competition among the shrimp, scallops, white fish, and mussels. I suppose we can never expect bad restaurants to be illegal, but we sure could do worse if more of them were Legal.

Full review.