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Charles Mallory has a deep connection to Mystic, Connecticut’s maritime heritage. His namesake arrived in Mystic, Connecticut, as a sailmaker’s apprentice in 1816. His grandfather, great uncle, and father have all served as presidents of the Mystic Seaport Museum, a major tourism draw for the coastal village. But recently, food has crept into Mystic’s top selling points — and not just because of the 1988 Julia Roberts film Mystic Pizza. “Mystic has become a bona fide foodie destination over the last dozen years,” Mallory says, “and we are delighted to become a part of that scene.”

The founder and CEO of Delamar Hotel Collection, Mallory will open Delamar Mystic this fall, adjacent to the Mystic Seaport Museum on the Mystic River. The latest in his line of luxury boutique hotels will host the restaurant La Plage Restaurant & Oyster Bar. “We have already built strong relationships with local seafood vendors like Norm Bloom of Copps Island Oysters,” says Mallory, and he and chef Frederic Kieffer look forward to working with many more as they celebrate incredible local seafood and produce alongside places he admires like Sift Bake Shop and The Shipwright’s Daughter.

“The quality and availability of the products that are the building blocks of so many of the menus in the area are second to none,” echoes David Standridge, who just won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northeast thanks to his work as chef and partner at The Shipwright’s Daughter, the restaurant inside The Whaler’s Inn in downtown Mystic. He partners with local fishermen to showcase a much wider, and therefore more sustainable, variety of seafood than you’d typically find on menus, from invasive green crabs to his favorite summer specialty: sweet native sea snails called slipper limpets. “Like many things we use, they’re everywhere along the coast but also very hard to get because no one harvests them,” Standridge says. This time of year, “We serve them in the shell like escargot and preserve them in jars for a fun pasta to remember the summer when winter rolls in.”