Labuan runs on seafood, not just duty-free chocolate
Most visitors land in Labuan for the duty-free shopping or the ferry connection to Brunei and Sabah, and never wander past the Financial Park shoplots. That's a mistake. Labuan is a Federal Territory island built on fishing-village, port-town character — its east coast kampungs still run boats out at dawn, and the catch lands at stalls and stilt-houses the same day.
What almost nobody tells you is that Labuan's seafood scene runs on a late clock. Of the seven places below, only three serve at midday, one shuts for good at 5pm, and the famous stilt-house stalls at Anjung Ketam don't open until 4pm or 5:30pm. Two entries are closed a full day every week, and two more run a split shift with a two-and-a-half to three-hour afternoon break. We rebuilt this guide in September 2026, and re-checked every entry on 12 October 2026, around exactly that: every entry carries its full week of opening hours, its rest day, its phone number and the spend-per-person band that Google Maps diners report, so you can plan a meal instead of driving out to a dark boardwalk.
Anjung Ketam is three restaurants, not one
The most distinctly "Labuan" way to eat seafood is the cluster of stalls built out over the sea on stilts at Kampung Tanjung Aru, on the island's east coast. Locals — and Google — number them Gerai No.1, No.2 and No.3, and most guides treat "Anjung Ketam" as one restaurant. It isn't. Each gerai is a separately run business with its own phone number, its own hours, its own rest day and its own price level:
- Gerai No.1 trades 4pm–11pm, seven days a week, and is the only one of the three open on Sunday. Diners reporting to Google Maps put the spend at roughly RM40–60 a head.
- Gerai No.2 trades 5:30pm–9:30pm, Monday to Saturday, closed Sunday. It carries by far the most reviews of the three (4.4 from 83). Its reported spend has moved up to RM40–60 a head, the same band as Gerai No.1 (it was RM20–40 when we checked in September).
- Gerai No.3 trades 4pm–10pm, Monday to Saturday, also closed Sunday, and reports the highest band of the three at roughly RM60–80.
Two practical consequences. If you turn up on a Sunday, Gerai No.1 is your only option on that boardwalk. And the tables are allocated per stall — reviewers describe being moved because they had ordered from a different gerai than the one their table belonged to. Pick your stall first, then sit.
Then there is the clock. A line repeated across older write-ups says you should reach Anjung Ketam before sunset (about 6:30pm in Labuan) because the stalls shut in the late afternoon. That is backwards. Nothing there opens before 4pm, and all three trade well after dark. Arriving around 5:30–6pm gets you both the light over the water and a stall that is actually serving.
The kampung stilt houses
Beyond Anjung Ketam, the other genuine over-the-water option is Nagalang Seafood Restaurant in Kampung Nagalang, reached by a short walkway across the sea and rebuilt in recent years. It leans hard into crab butter and udang galah (giant river prawn), and it is the one entry here with a genuinely wide reported spend — RM20–140 a head across 29 reporters — which is exactly what a by-weight live tank looks like when some tables order a plate of squid and others order lobster. Its rest day is the one to memorise: Nagalang is closed every Tuesday, opens at 2pm the rest of the week, and starts late (4:30pm) on Sunday.
Mawilla Yacht Club Restaurant on Jalan Tanjung Batu is the sit-down, big-capacity version of the waterfront model, next to the international sports complex. It is the most-reviewed seafood restaurant on the island by a distance (4.0 from more than 1,000 reviews) and the only one of the seven open continuously from 10:30am to 10:30pm, seven days a week — so it is the default if your ferry or flight leaves you eating at an odd hour. It also serves wine, which the halal stalls do not. Reviewers overwhelmingly single out the salted-egg silver fish and salted-egg squid rather than the grilled lobster that older articles push.
Town-centre and jetty-side
New Sung Hwa on Jalan Okk Awang Besar (older listings say Jalan Ujong Pasir) is the elder statesman — a first-floor shophouse restaurant widely described by long-time diners as the oldest seafood restaurant still trading on the island, with air-conditioned indoor seating and an open-air river-view section. It runs a split shift, 12pm–2:30pm and 5:30pm–10pm, with one catch: no lunch service on Mondays, dinner only. It serves no pork but does serve alcohol, and its listed signature is sweet and sour slipper lobster.
Labuan Fishermen Harbour Restaurant (registered as Labuan Fishermen Harbour Restaurant Sdn. Bhd., SSM 895630-U) is the air-conditioned town-centre pick, and the only entry here set up for weddings, birthdays and company dinners — a real distinction if you are feeding a group. It also runs a split shift, 10:30am–2:30pm and 5pm–10pm, seven days. Its most-mentioned dish in reviews is not the cheese-baked prawn older lists quote but its fish soup range: tomato, salted vegetable, tom yam and butter-gourd bases, with red grouper or snapper available as a premium upgrade over the standard fillet.
The jetty-side entry has changed name. The restaurant in the old passenger ferry terminal beside Jetty Sri Ganti, long written up as Deep Sea Raff, now appears on Google Maps as Deep Sea YM Cahaya on the same phone number, with its Facebook page trading as Raff x Deep Sea Restaurant. Be clear about what it is: a halal, Malay-style nasi campur and buffet operation with a sea view, not a live-tank seafood house. Its headline dishes are Sarawak laksa, nasi campur berlauk and ayam penyet alongside grilled fish, and reported spend is in the RM1–20 bracket — the cheapest on this list by a wide margin. It closes at 5pm, so it works for a pre-ferry lunch and not at all for dinner.
What you'll actually pay
Almost every Labuan seafood guide, including the earlier version of this one, refuses to quote ringgit on the grounds that crab and prawn are sold by weight at the day's rate. That is true of the tanks, but it leaves readers with nothing. Google Maps publishes a crowd-reported spend-per-person band for all seven entries here, from 145 diners between them (re-read on 12 October 2026), and read together they sort the list cleanly:
- Under RM20 a head: Deep Sea YM Cahaya (RM1–20, 29 reporters).
- RM20–40: Labuan Fishermen Harbour (17 reporters) — now the lowest band of any live-seafood kitchen on this list.
- RM40–80: the Anjung Ketam stalls — Gerai No.1 and No.2 both at RM40–60 (9 and 16 reporters), Gerai No.3 at RM60–80 (7 reporters).
- RM20–100 and up, with a long tail for big orders: New Sung Hwa (RM20–100, 9 reporters), Mawilla (RM20–100, 36 reporters) and Nagalang (RM20–140, 29 reporters).
Google has thinned these samples sharply since September, when the same seven entries carried 441 reports, so treat any one band as a rough guide rather than a price list.
Two dated diner receipts give the shape of a real bill. At Anjung Ketam Gerai No.1 in August 2026, a table reported two kam heong crabs, 500g of buttermilk prawn, 500g of grilled cockles, rice and two drinks for RM115 total — and noted the stall takes QR payment. At New Sung Hwa, a diner reported seven dishes for RM266.50. Treat both as anchors, not menu prices: the fixed-menu items barely move, the live tank does. Confirm the per-100g or per-piece rate on crab and prawn before it goes in the wok, which is the single habit that keeps a Labuan seafood bill predictable.
What to order
Across these kitchens the recurring, review-verified standouts are salted-egg silver fish and salted-egg squid at Mawilla, crab butter and udang galah at Nagalang, kam heong crab and buttermilk prawn at Anjung Ketam, sweet and sour slipper lobster at New Sung Hwa, and the fish soup with a choice of four broths at Fishermen Harbour. Order these before defaulting to fried rice. Where there is a live tank, picking the animal and naming the cooking style is the most reliable way to get both a fair price and a fresh plate.
Halal, pork and alcohol
The Anjung Ketam stalls and Deep Sea YM Cahaya are Malay-Muslim-run and serve no pork or alcohol; none of them publishes a JAKIM certificate number, so if formal certification matters to you, ask at the stall rather than assuming. New Sung Hwa and Mawilla both advertise no pork but do serve alcohol, which is the practical distinction most diners actually care about. Nagalang and Fishermen Harbour are Chinese-run seafood restaurants with no published halal certification.
What We Left Out
Tiara Seafood Restaurant at Tiara Labuan Hotel was in the previous version of this list and has been removed. As of 7 September 2026, the hotel's own dining page lists only The Grill, Alfresco Poolside Garden, Blue Bayu Lounge and Cheers — no seafood restaurant. Google Maps shows only The Grill as a business at the hotel, and the Tiara Seafood Facebook page has not posted since 21 July. Three independent signals, none of them promising a reopening; we are not ranking a restaurant the hotel no longer lists. The hotel itself is trading normally on +60 87-414 300.
Loong Fish Head Soup Stall is not a seafood restaurant in the live-tank sense, but it is the answer to the gap this list can't fill: it opens at 6:30am and runs to 9pm, seven days, at an RM1–20 spend across 136 reporters, and holds a 4.3 from 943 reviews. If you want fish before noon in Labuan, that is where to go.
Welcome Seafood, Gayang Seafood, Imperial Seafood and The Crab House are all real and well-reviewed, but they are in Kota Kinabalu, not Labuan. Meng Chai Seafood is in Miri, Sarawak. Thai Beach Restaurant is a good Labuan restaurant built around Thai cuisine rather than a seafood-first menu.
How to pick, in one pass
Sunday and it's dinner: Gerai No.1 at Anjung Ketam, or Mawilla. Tuesday: anywhere except Nagalang. Lunch: Mawilla, Fishermen Harbour or New Sung Hwa (but not New Sung Hwa on a Monday). Before an afternoon ferry: Deep Sea YM Cahaya, and get there before 5pm. Feeding a group with a booking and air-conditioning: Fishermen Harbour. Cheapest sit-down seafood dinner: Fishermen Harbour, now reporting RM20–40 a head. Over the water: Gerai No.1 or No.2 (both RM40–60), and call ahead to No.2 — regulars say pre-ordering is the norm there.
