Calamari in Santa Monica

5 restaurants in Santa Monica list calamari on their menus. The cheapest is Seaside on the Pier at $15.95, listed as Fried Calamari. The typical price across town is $18.00, and the dearest we found is $30.00 at Ivy at the Shore, so the two ends of the list are $14.05 apart, which is 88% more for the same dish. Of the 5 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track calamari in 493 other areas and compare them all on calamari across United States. The typical price there runs $15.42 at the median, so Santa Monica is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 54 of the 493. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.50 at French Quarter Grille in Austin, TX, and the highest best price is $19.75 in Harwood Heights, IL. The nearest area with it is Los Angeles, about 8 mi away, where the best price is $11.95.

Where is the cheapest calamari in Santa Monica? Seaside on the Pier, at $15.95 on 250 Santa Monica Pier. The same dish reaches $30.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $14.05.

What should calamari cost here? About $18.00 is the typical price across the 5 kitchens in Santa Monica that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 are more than a dollar below that and 1 is more than a dollar above, so the typical price is a middle rather than a floor.

Is it cheaper nearby? The nearest area we track it in is Los Angeles, about 8 mi away, where the best price is $11.95. That is $4.00 less than the best here, though whether that is worth the journey is your call.

Why do the prices differ so much? We compare what each menu calls the same dish, and menus are not identical: portion, cut, sides and the kind of room you are sitting in all ride on the price, and none of that shows up in a number. Part portions and half sizes are kept out of this comparison, and a chain charging the same at several addresses is counted once, so the spread above is between genuinely different kitchens rather than the same one repeated.