New Orleans native Josh Boeckelman became executive chef of Superior Seafood & Oyster Bar in his hometown two years ago. Since then, he has brought more seasonal items to the menu and educated his staff and customers about fish and preparation methods he hasn’t seen before.
He discussed his plans and the challenges of his job with Nation’s Restaurant News.
Is Gulf seafood seasonal, or do you mostly change the produce that goes with it?
It’s mainly vegetables, but we do have some seasonal seafood, crawfish being one of them. They usually start at the end of March, but the cold weather and the rain brought them earlier this year. They’re not as big, but we were selling them through Mardi Gras, which was awesome. We’re doing crawfish boils Thursday through Sunday at the restaurant right now, and people seem to love it. A little later, close to May, we’ll have soft-shell crabs.
Does the restaurant make a lot of money on crawfish?
Down here, a lot of the restaurants sell them for such a high price. We do not. You can go to some restaurants where they charge you $10, $12 a pound. Right now we’ll charge $6 [a pound], and once we get them a little bit cheaper we’ll start selling them a little bit cheaper as well.
How do you make up for that in terms of profit? Sell drinks?
If you’re eating crawfish, that’s going hand in hand for the most part. For Mardi Gras we have a lot of tourists in town, obviously, but people that are from here know that if you’re eating crawfish you’re going to get a cold beer.
During happy hour, with oysters we break even [year round], and that’s basically what we’re doing now with crawfish, but it gets people in here. People in New Orleans love crawfish, and we always wish the season was longer than it is. So we’re blessed this year.
Are your customers interested in trying new fish?
We just started doing the seasonal changes last September, so this spring will be our third time changing the menu, and the guests seem to like it, and it helps us stay fresh and keep up with new trends.
At first it was a little harder because I’m trying to sell to guests and to staff as well. I have to educate them and let them know different vegetables or fish that they haven’t tried before, and different preparations as well. But it seems to sell.
What did you do to get your staff on board with the changes?
When I change the menu I’ll change roughly eight items, and about two weeks before changing them at each pre-shift meeting I’ll make the new dishes and let them try them every day, talk about the preparations and the vegetables and proteins, and basically get them informed. That way it’s easier for them to explain it to the guests and to sell it to the guests.
Sometimes it can be a challenge when I change the menu and the guests will like something that was on last season’s menu. We always try to accommodate for our guests, but sometimes we don’t have [those items] in-house.
Our guests might be a little scared to try a new dish, but it’s really just getting our staff educated enough to convince them to try it.
Are there new or different types of seafood you’ve been working with?
I haven’t yet, but what I want to try and work with is soft-shelled crawfish.
Is soft-shell crawfish a thing?
I haven’t seen it on any menus around here or heard people speak about it, but I know it’s out there and I’d like to try it. I was literally talking about it 30 minutes ago and haven’t had time to look it up yet.
People go crazy for soft-shell crab. We’ll run it when it’s in season almost every weekend and we sell out of it every time. I think locals would be very interested [in soft-shell crawfish] because they love crawfish. I’ll test it out and get feedback and go from there.
What else are you working on?
I have a passion for charcuterie work. It’s something I’ve been getting into a lot lately. But how do you sell that at a seafood and oyster house? So I’m trying to work on a seafood charcuterie board for the summer — raw fish and cured fish. Maybe a saffron scallop mousse, maybe sear that and treat it like foie gras and put that on a board with some smoked trout rillettes or salmon dip or tuna bottarga.
Maybe redfish gravlax?
Exactly. Something different. It’s difficult when you’re trying to think out of the box and try things you haven’t seen. But if it’s not successful at first, maybe I’ll go back and tweak some recipes, reeducate the staff and try it again in a couple of weeks.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
