One of my absolute favourite things to have with a Martini is seafood, in various forms. From smoked to cured, raw to steamed, pickled and curried, and everything in between, it all seems to go so nicely with the silver bullet.

So here is a selection of some of the recent items I’ve had the pleasure of eating:

This is beetroot-cured gravlax. I sliced it fairly thickly and dipped it in soy sauce, sashimi style, and paired it with a pickled ginger martini.

Here are some Isle of Mull oysters in the Western Isles Hotel overlooking Tobermory Harbour. I’ve previously written that oysters make perhaps the most perfect martini accompaniment here, and these ones were delicious.

This was delectable smoked trout from the Tobermory Fish Company, served up by the wonderful chef Helen at the Hebridean Lodge on the Isle of Mull. It came with a deliciously soft rye bread, sweet pickled salad, the lightest whipped butter and soft herby cheese.

These were wine-steamed (dairy free) Inverlussa mussels served on a nice evening with an Isle of Mull Seaweed hot sauce martini. You can buy the hot sauce here.

This is a toast skagen with shrimp salad and a miniature martini in Stockholm. I find myself regularly craving toast skagen in its different forms. I’m going to have to write a post about it.

This was a very simple Izakaya-style snack of sliced radish topped with lumpfish caviar. Very basic but it had a nice texture combination and was light and refreshing.

This was a hefty roasted cod on a bed of curried Inverlussa mussels at Ar Bòrd. Absolutely delicious, supremely comforting and very nice alongside a cold, silver bullet I brought as my BYOB.

These are summer rolls made with smoked mussels from the Tobermory Fish Company. They might feel a little fiddly to make at first, but you get used to it and you’ll come to find they make a fantastic, refreshing and unusual canapé, especially for warm evening get togethers. The smoked mussels are good all year round, although I perhaps find them most comforting during the darker months. The smokey flavour goes exquisitely with a martini.

This was a delicious bowl of cured mountain char in Bien Basar, Bergen. Norway is well-known for it’s excellent seafood and it sits very nicely next to a cold, dry martini.

Also in Bergen, this was deeply satisfying salmon sashimi on a salad of fresh greens and diced pineapple. What a destination for seafood lovers.

This is dressed crab at the Ivy in London. I don’t normally like to eat the brown meat but it was savoury and delicious and I’ll definitely be going back for more.

I’m not one to shy away from crab in general, so here’s some more I enjoyed at Côte, Covent Garden.

Returning to the Isle of Mull, here we have some fresh local Langoustines at the Western Isles Hotel.

And finally, we have some delicious Croig crab served on drop scones with XO sauce and a stunning squid ink tuile. It’s one of the many reasons I keep going back to Ar Bòrd restaurant.

By the way, if you want to know more about where some of this seafood comes from and what the life is like, Kenny who catches the crab at Croig has an absolutely stunning Instagram account.

His family is also behind Croig Oysters where I was astronomically lucky to find a pearl.

I take this as a very good omen. May there be many more martinis accompanied by seafood in my future. Slàinte!