The Oyster Guide

The Tomales Bay Oyster Company is California’s dean of oyster operations, in business continuously since 1909. It concentrates on Pacifics. While the waters are the same shallow, relatively warm environment so helpful to Hog Island’s oysters (the southern end of Tomales Bay is one of the only spots in Northern California where the water ever gets swimmable), everything else is different. Tomales Bay Oyster Company is scruffy and low-key, and its oysters are bottom-grown and hand-picked. Not as pretty or deep-cupped as Hog Islands, they are stronger flavored.