Stepped up, love, with extremely delicious crabs and lobsters (8)
I believe the answer is:
decapods
'crabs and lobsters' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this definition defines the answer.
'stepped up love with extremely delicious' is the wordplay.
'stepped' becomes 'paced' (to pace is to take a step).
'up' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'love' becomes 'o' (love means zero in tennis).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'extremely' suggests removing the centre (only the extremes of the word are used).
'delicious' with its centre removed is 'ds'.
'paced' written backwards gives 'decap'.
'decap'+'o'+'ds'='DECAPODS'
Can you help me to learn more?