King crab lunch in Tromso: how much crab you actually get

The red king crab that comes out of the Barents Sea is a big animal. A legal-sized male spans well over a metre from claw to claw and carries most of its meat in the legs and shoulders, which is why the kitchen splits it lengthways and sends it out as long white batons rather than as a whole crab on a plate.

Two guests share one crab. That is the norm across Northern Norway and it is what every king crab safari on this page means when the description says a meal is included. In practice it lands as eight to ten leg sections between the two of you, plus the shoulder meat, and most people slow down before the platter is empty.

The cooking is deliberately plain. The crab goes into boiling sea water for a few minutes and comes out; from there it is butter, lemon and bread. Sauces and spice would cover the thing you paid for, so the good boats leave them off and let the meat do the work.

One detail that surprises people: the meat is sweet rather than briny, closer to lobster than to brown crab, and it is served warm on the boats and at room temperature at the restaurant table. Both are correct, and the warm version tends to win the argument.

Ashore, in a restaurant. Our top pick at $265 is the king crab safari that does this. You spend four and a half hours pulling pots on the fjord, the catch comes back with the boat, and the meal happens at a proper table in town with a glass in front of you. For people who want the hunt and the dinner to feel like two separate pleasures, this is the trip, and at 87 reviews and 4.4 it is the best-evidenced king crab lunch in Tromso here.

On board, as you sail. $310 and $361 cook the crab on the boat. The pots come up, the crew works over the pot while you are still out in the fjord, and the meal is eaten with the water going past the window. It is the closest thing here to how the fishing crews actually eat.

In a heated tent, on the ice. The Kirkenes winter trip at $369 and the long day from Finland at $896 serve theirs Northern Norwegian style in a lavvo, after a snowmobile sled or a van has carried you out across the frozen fjord. That is a different day and a different photograph.

Half a crab each. A commercial male of legal size weighs somewhere between two and five kilograms whole, the legs and shoulders carry most of the edible meat, and once it is split between two guests each person ends up with roughly 600 to 800 grams of meat on the plate. That is a generous main course by any measure and it defeats a fair number of guests.

Operators size the portion this way for a reason that has nothing to do with meanness. King crab is rich; the meat is sweet and dense and it sits heavily. Guests who ask for a second crab tend to look at it differently forty minutes later. If you are certain you want more, say so at booking rather than on the day, and most kitchens will price it for you.

The other honest note is about the soup. On our top pick and on both fishing trips, the soup is a real course rather than a token starter, and on a dark afternoon in February it often ends up being the part people describe first when they get home.

One crab between two. That is the portion on every listing here that includes a meal, and it is enough.

Boiled, split, buttered. The cooking stays plain on purpose, and the sweetness of the meat is the point of the whole trip.

Ashore or afloat. $265 serves it at a restaurant table after the hunt; $310 and $361 serve it on the water. Pick the ending you would rather have, because the crab is identical and so is the king crab lunch in Tromso that follows it.