Restaurant Review - Ebb and flow

Salmon again for dinner? Some local chefs ride a different wave



Shad is a silvery fish, primarily caught in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, whose meat strikes an unusually graceful balance between robust and silky. It has a double skeleton that makes it laborious to debone. The Lenape Native Americans who lived near the Delaware River called it a “porcupine fish turned inside out.”

When filleted, shad opens like an envelope, making it ideal for stuffing. Its roe, contained in transparent lobes that are typically baked or sauteed, is a fleeting delicacy anticipated as a harbinger of spring by its fans.

Shad’s brief appearance in March and April comes and goes undetected by most of Atlanta’s dining public. But it’s just the kind of fish that Scott Peacock, executive chef at Watershed in Decatur, prefers to offer his customers. “We’re a Southern restaurant, so our goal is to serve seasonal fish that’s indigenous to the Southern states,” says Peacock. Virginia shad may only be a special for a night or two before it becomes unavailable. Then it’s on to wahoo from Florida or puppy drum caught off the Carolina coast.

Watershed’s philosophy to consistently serve less familiar, wild-caught fish is an anomaly shared by only a handful of other chefs around town. Customers who peruse the menus of most of the city’s restaurants will find the same well-known names repeated over and over: salmon, tilapia, catfish, halibut, trout. Why just a pond full of choices when there are oceans worth of options?

Answering that question means jumping into the murky waters of the seafood industry.

Boycotts and government moratoriums on overfished species; contentious relations between the commercial fishing and recreational fishing industries, not to mention environmental groups; the merits of wild-caught vs. farmed-raised fish; and the challenges of an ever-growing need for consistent product to meet public demand. These are but the principal issues that seafood purveyors have to consider when finding sources of fish and shellfish to sell to restaurants.

“Seventy percent of seafood in the U.S. is consumed outside the home,” notes Joel Knox, president of Atlanta-based Inland Seafood. “When people go out to dinner, they feel like they ought to eat fish.” Predictability in taste, quality and price play an important part when chefs decide what seafood they will serve.

Remember slimefish? Probably not, though you might remember its rechristened name: orange roughy. Mild, lean, flaky and (in the beginning) inexpensive, it became the darling of the restaurant world in the late ’80s. It also became the prototype for America’s taste in fish. “People do have an orange roughy mentality,” says Peacock.

Patagonian toothfish — aka Chilean sea bass — followed suit in the ’90s. Both species suffered the effects of over-marketing and now top “avoid” lists issued by environmental watchdog groups such as the Seafood Choices Alliance, headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Salmon is nearly as ubiquitous an offering as chicken these days, yet even this best seller has come under scrutiny of late. More than 60 percent of all salmon eaten in this country is farm raised, and recent studies have shown that hundreds of samples from farm-raised salmon contain worrisomely high levels of contaminants, some of which have been shown to increase the risk of cancer. Additional concerns about pollution, antibiotics in the feed and coloring used to dye farmed-raised salmon a deeper shade of pink have also been cited.

For some of Atlanta’s chefs, though, it all comes down to taste: Wild-caught salmon has a vivid, buttery richness that far surpasses its farmed counterpart. “When I serve the first wild-caught Columbia River salmon in spring, some guests ask, ‘Why are you charging $32 for this salmon when I could pay $16 at the neighborhood corner bistro down the street?’” says Michael Tuohy, chef/owner of Woodfire Grill. “I tell them, ‘It’s just a whole different animal — literally!’”

Knox of Inland Seafood agrees. “We sell Coho, Alaskan King, Sockeye — wild-caught salmon for every budget. It’s a vastly superior product.”

Passionate chefs often go to significant lengths to locate the best seafood available. “A big part of my job is sourcing,” says Tuohy. “The more a restaurant emphasizes seasonality and artisan and organic products, the harder you have to look.” Being spontaneous when an unexpected surprise — say, a box of soft-shell crabs — arrives is part of the game. “I couldn’t do this if I had a set menu,” Tuohy says. “I think that’s why so many people default to ordinary choices: It’s affordable and it helps stick with food costs. I understand, but I don’t go there.”

Restaurants such as Woodfire Grill, Bacchanalia, Floataway Cafe, Seeger’s and even seafood chain McCormick and Schmick’s reprint their menus daily to reflect the ever-changing supply of seafood. Others such as Watershed and MidCity Cuisine include a seasonal catch in their list of nightly specials.

A strong rapport with seafood suppliers aids chefs tremendously in their search for the best. “Chefs like Scott Peacock are usually interested in what we call ‘secondary,’ or ‘peripheral catches,’” explains Jim Labor, sales manager for Inland Seafood. “That would be things like sablefish or black cod pulled in alongside halibut, or wahoo caught on tuna boats.

“It’s essential that we constantly educate our customers and keep them abreast of situations that arise,” Labor continues. “If there’s a hurricane off the coast of Florida, or a holiday in South America, we need to let our customers know there may not be any fresh grouper for two weeks, for example. And it’s great when chefs are excited to experiment with the uncommon fish that we get during different times of the year.”

“Jim’s promised to send me books and charts so I can track the seasons,” jokes Peacock.

Is Atlanta at a disadvantage regarding seafood because it’s landlocked? Not necessarily, according to Knox, who raises an interesting point: “Those coastal towns want their local fish year-round, whether it’s available locally or not. So mahi-mahi served in their restaurants could be from Florida, it could be from Ecuador, it could be from Peru. Atlanta isn’t as attached to particular types of fish as other places, so there is the potential for folks to want to have a bit more diversity in the types of fish they eat.”

And though local is certainly preferred by many chefs, technology has made it possible for “fresh” seafood to come from anywhere in the world. “I ordered spot prawns from Santa Barbara last week via Fed-Ex,” says Tuohy. “When they arrived, they were alive and running around. I had to chase after them!”

The two most popular fish currently served at Kyma in Buckhead — lavatki and tsipoura — are both imported from Greece, says general manager Nicholas Sousounis. Buckhead Life Restaurant Group, which owns Kyma, operates its own seafood distributor, Boutique Seafood, and imports fish from all over the Mediterranean specifically for Kyma.

Is it difficult to encourage diners to try new fish? “Of course, we have the usual halibut-type fish,” says Sousounis, “but we’ve never had any guests who are fish lovers be disappointed. It’s our job to educate them at the table. Most of our customers trust us and are definitely up for trying something new.”

Ultimately, the transient nature of finer seafood can be viewed as a seasonal treat year-round for both customers and chefs. “It’s never fun to call my customers and tell them the season is over for Maine diver scallops and stone crab claws,” says Labor. “But the upside is, I can now get them excited for sweet East Coast white shrimp and Troll King salmon.”

bill.addison@creativeloafing.com