Jeremy Sewall has been delighting Massachusetts seafood lovers since 2003, when he arrived as opening executive chef of Great Bay at the Hotel Commonwealth. Now he is chef-owner of the Boston restaurants Island Creek Oyster Bar and Row 34, as well as Lineage in Brookline, Mass. He is also consulting chef at Eastern Standard in Boston.
Sewall discussed the growing popularity of oysters with Nation’s Restaurant News, as well as why he doesn’t believe the term “sustainable” applies to wild fish.
We’ve seen a growing interest in oysters over the past couple of years.
A hundred years ago, oysters were a huge part of any kind of coastal community food supply, and oyster bars were a common part of everyday dining. Then the oysters went away for a variety of reasons — pollution, overharvesting and a few other variables. But oysters have come back; oyster bars are certainly as popular as ever. It’s a great food — a great source of protein, a carbon-positive way to grow seafood…
…and it cleans up water systems.
It takes more bad things out than it puts in, and that’s an amazing thing. I also think that some of the other fisheries have struggled. [If] you can’t necessarily make a living going out in a boat and catching fish, but you still want to make a living on the water, there are great opportunities for people to transition into shellfish farming.
Oysters will grow in a multitude of environments, and I think that’s been a great opportunity for people to make a living on the coast.
I think people have gotten smart about how to grow them [using] different methods, and that has led to the huge popularity in oysters.
What is the oyster farming scene like in New England?
There’s always been a few guys doing it, but in the past 10-plus years, up and down the Cape [Cod] and up and down the north and south shore [of Massachusetts Bay], up in Maine and New Hampshire, there’s a lot of amazing oysters that are being grown, and a lot of them don’t leave their state. They’re just small farms, small producers, growing some amazing oysters that are just sold locally, and I think that’s probably one of the most amazing things that can happen.
What is amazing about them?
You have these guys who are really dedicated to growing a quality product, and they’re grown in different areas and they take on different flavors and shape and size and style. Knowing that you can get probably 20-plus varieties of oysters from the Cape that are all going to be a little bit different and grown by different guys is pretty cool.
How different are they?
Some of the differences are very subtle, and some are really obvious. It also depends on the time of year, how brackish the water is, how deep the oysters are grown, how warm the water was, how fast they grew. All those things play into it, and you can easily line up six different oysters grown in six different areas and subtly taste the difference.
Is that something your customers are into?
Some are, and some aren’t. Some have a few different varieties that they love and always go to, and some really want the experience — to line up six, eight, 12 different oysters and try all of them. And sometimes you just want to eat oysters, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Is there a big variation in pricing?
It really depends on where they’re from, where they’re grown, time of year, supply, demand — all those things play into it. Oysters have gotten expensive. It’s not a cheap thing anymore.
What about other seafood? What’s in good, sustainable supply?
You know, I don’t think “sustainable” is really a word that applies to seafood. It just doesn’t make any sense. I know that’s a word people like to throw around, but you can’t just keep harvesting wild fish and expect them to be there forever. It’s just not realistic. So you make choices based on a few things: what’s available, cost, supply and marketability. I don’t wake up every day and say, “What choices am I going to make that are sustainable?” Because there’s very few that really are. There are a couple fish farms that are sustainable, but [for] wild fish we try to use small vessels, day boats, things that stay local. I use a lot of hook-and-line fish and make the choices that way.
We try to buy fish from guys who fish responsibly and do a great job and do their best with it. If the government or the local fisheries say, “You can catch X amount of this fish and you can harvest it legally, harvest responsibly and you can sell it,” then we’re going to buy it.
We spend a lot of time trying to make choices that make sense from a consumer standpoint, from a local economy/local fisherman standpoint and support our local guys, but I don’t sit there and say, “Did I try to be sustainable?”
Menu mainstays, "trash fish"
How about some of the lesser utilized fish that some chefs try to market as “trash fish”?
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would you call food “trash?” If they really have any interest in promoting these species and using them, stop calling them trash. That’s not how you label food that you want to have some kind of value or appeal to a consumer.
The reason that chefs are turning to these species is because they have to. Not everybody can afford, or have the availability of, scallops or halibut or cod — these fish that have become mainstays on menus for years. They’re just not going to be available, so you have to turn to those that are — the things that we used as bait for years, like redfish and herring and sardines. They got caught and ground up for fishmeal or fertilizer or whatever, but now you can put it on a plate and sell it for more money.
That’s what’s happening in the world of seafood, and I think it’s great that some of these other species are getting some attention and taking pressure off of the others.
Are you using any of those fish?
Yeah, we print our menus every day. We wake up and we look at emails that we get from the fish piers and fish purveyors every morning on what’s available, and a lot of those fish are in play, whether it’s skate or redfish or hake. We also use different cuts. We buy monkfish cheeks or skate cheeks, using more of the fish. All of that stuff is in play for us — any quality product that we think we can handle well and tastes good, that’s what we’re going to use.
Are your customers open to trying those fish?
I think we’ve gained some trust with our guests over the years, and that’s been a big part of our success. So they’re willing to try something new with us that they might not otherwise. Staff education is a big part of that, too. We teach them where it’s from, how it was caught, what it tastes like, why we’re serving it, how we’re cooking it and making them feel comfortable about talking about it.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
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