Edo’s Squid Brings Big Italian Seafood Energy Upstairs in Richmond

A street-level doorway associated with Hibachi Box can send a first-time visitor in the wrong direction. Edo’s Squid is the Italian restaurant upstairs: find the entrance, take the long stairway, and the destination opens into a compact room devoted to pasta, seafood, wine and a good deal of dinner-table conversation.

It is an old-Richmond setting with a pleasantly hidden quality, though not a hushed one. The dining room is intimate and lively, tables sit close together, and the energy rises as seats fill. For a quiet, drawn-out conversation, it may be more bustle than refuge; for a social dinner with serious food on the table, the room has plenty going for it.

The staircase is more than a route from sidewalk to table. Old photographs line the way up, offering a small visual prelude before the restaurant’s more polished, modern interior comes into view.

At the top, there is a small bar alongside the dining room. It gives the space a neighborhood-restaurant immediacy: people settling in with a drink, servers moving between close-set tables, and an evening that does not need much warming up before it gets going.

The bar can be an option for diners arriving without a reservation, although it can fill quickly around opening. Reservations are recommended, particularly on busy evenings, since this is not a sprawling restaurant with a large waiting area.

Edo’s Squid works from the broad, comforting terrain of Italian seafood cooking, with pasta, vegetables and meat dishes sharing the table. Seafood pasta and crab spaghetti, also called crab pasta, have been among the dishes diners seek out, and the menu also makes room for changing specials.

The range can be useful when a table has several appetites in play. Menu offerings have included calamari, squid salad, shrimp with basil, rockfish, skatefish, duck, flank steak and monkfish Diablo, so the meal need not be built around a single safe choice.

Fish dishes have their own appeal here. Rockfish has been noted for a delicate but meaty texture and good seasoning, while the monkfish Diablo points toward the menu’s willingness to give seafood a little heat and personality rather than treat it too cautiously.

The pasta dishes are central to the visit, and portions arrive with the sort of generosity that invites a table to pass plates around or carry dinner home afterward. Fresh bread alongside the pasta is a simple but welcome detail, especially when there is sauce left on the plate.

Crab pasta is one of the better-known orders, but a quieter pasta can make an impression too. A penne preparation with olive oil, mushrooms and a substantial amount of minced garlic has offered a lighter-meal option without sacrificing flavor.

Garlic is not handled timidly. Fresh garlic is prepared near the entrance, and garlic-forward dishes recur across the menu. Diners who enjoy that sharp, savory backbone will find it woven into the restaurant’s character.

Baked cabbage has earned a following of its own. It is an unusually memorable vegetable order, deeply flavored and substantial enough to hold its place among the seafood and pasta rather than serve as a dutiful side note.

The opening portion of the meal offers plenty of ways to build a spread. Eggplant Parmigiana, arugula salad, mussels with white sauce, Gorgonzola pasta and braised fennel have all appeared among the appetizer choices.

That makes Edo’s Squid especially suited to diners who prefer a table with several things happening at once: a bowl of mussels here, fennel there, a pasta landing in the middle, and a little bread doing useful work throughout.

Smaller parties can order individual dishes, while larger groups can take the family-style route. That distinction matters. The restaurant is not asking every pair of diners to commit to a group feast, but a larger table can turn appetizers and entrées into a shared progression.

For a group, the format leaves room to cover more ground without everyone ordering the same thing. A seafood pasta, a fish preparation, a vegetable dish and a meat entrée can all have their moment, with the large portions making the arrangement especially workable.

Veal piccata has been noted for being tender enough to cut with a fork, a reminder that the menu is not exclusively maritime. A table can stay mostly seafood-focused and still add one or two land-based dishes without breaking the flow of dinner.

The wine selection runs from casual house pours to Italian bottles, including Sangiovese and Montepulciano. Pasta, bread and a red with enough structure to stand up to garlic and seafood is an easy direction for the meal, though the list has enough range not to make that the only answer.

Servers and bartenders help explain menu items and specials, and they can steer diners through food, cocktails and wine. In a restaurant where the offerings can range from crab pasta to skatefish or monkfish Diablo, a little guidance is useful rather than ceremonial.

That attentive approach also helps a group avoid ordering blindly. It is easy to ask what is particularly good that evening, how much food will suit the table, or which bottle will work across a mix of fish, pasta and vegetables.

Tiramisu is the dessert to keep in mind after a large dinner. It has been popular enough that extra portions have gone home with diners, which is a sensible outcome when the earlier courses have been as generous as advertised.

Street parking, including paid street parking, is available in the area, though availability varies. The more immediate logistical point is the entrance: Edo’s Squid is upstairs, reached by that long staircase, and its street association with the ground-floor Hibachi Box can be confusing until you know the arrangement.