It’s oyster time
Best seafood towers, chefs' go-to counters & coolest oyster experiences, Island Creek Oysters, oyster gifts, Eventide, MORE
ABOUT FOUND • Oyster Week
I learned to love oysters living in Paris in my early 20s. My French teacher at the time, a charming (but stern) older French woman named Michelle, was aghast when she took me out for a holiday lunch and I turned down her offer of an oyster on the half shell. (I’d later learn I’d rejected a Belon, one of the holy grails of oysterdom, such shame to my name.) Shortly thereafter, Michelle freed me from my ignorant ways by coaxing (ordering) me to try one. One tentative slurp became a half dozen, and soon a dozen more, and an abiding new passion was born.
More than most foods, oysters evoke personal connections, often driven by the terrain from which they grow. For me, it’ll always be East Coast oysters, and the further north, the better. Several summers ago, I was invited to harvest oysters at dead low tide in a tidal salt marsh near Pine Point, Maine. What do you mean I just plunge my hand into the water and pick one up off the sandy bottom? As others have observed throughout FOUND’s first-ever Oyster Week, the experience of slurping an oyster mere moments after harvesting it from the ocean — in this case, naked (the oyster) on the back bench of a Boston Whaler — is singular, and worth seeking out.
In New York City, my oyster journey started as so many do at Grand Central Oyster Bar (consider the oyster pan roast), progressed to the excellent raw bar offerings at the original Blue Ribbon in Soho, and then to Balthazar, where the arrival of the seafood tower ranks as a peak New York City moment no matter how many times it’s done. When she turned three months old, our daughter’s first restaurant meal took place at the West Village’s abiding Jeffrey’s Grocery. Of course we ordered a dozen oysters to mark the moment. My daughter, four now, is game for an oyster slurp; city kids, right?
Oysters are versatile, too: the perfect start to a steakhouse meal at, for instance, Gage & Tollner (above), and increasingly, in cocktails around town (and not just for the brine). The inclusion of a whole oyster belly at the bottom of my martini at Bistrot Ha didn’t go unnoticed, or unenjoyed.
Welcome, then, to Oyster Week at FOUND. We’ve ungated most of the content for your reading pleasure across LA, SF, Miami, London, and Paris, and the delights are myriad. But here in NYC, it’s time to plunge in. –Lockhart Steele
INTEL • Oyster Week
What’s your go-to spot for oysters and seafood?
→ MARY ATTEIA, executive chef, Raf’s, The Musket Room, Cafe Zaffri: There’s nothing better than a stroll down Arthur Ave. in the Bronx, where you can stand and enjoy a plate of oysters, clams and shrimp cocktail at Cosenza’s Fish Market. Otherwise, for a seated experience, Penny is top of the list, currently.
→ CODY PRUITT, owner, Libertine & Chateau Royale: My personal favorite oyster ritual in New York City is to pick up a couple dozen from Lobster Place in Chelsea Market, meet a date or a friend along Hudson River Park, and simply shuck and chat for hours. Truth be told, I’ve been waiting eight months to do it again. If I have to choose a restaurant, though, there’s still not much better — or more New York — than sitting at the bar at Balthazar with a proper shellfish tower, fries, and a bottle of Meursault. Although the city has many newer seafood spots, none of them are remotely as comfortable or as chic, and they’re often just too cheffy when all I want is unadorned perfect shellfish. Beyond New York, it’s all about J Sheekey and Scott’s in London, Le Duc and Clamato in Paris, The Ordinary and Chubby Fish in Charleston, and Found Oyster in LA.
→ FORREST FLORSHEIM, chef de cuisine, Penny: For oysters, I like El Pingüino. It is just down the street from me in Greenpoint. I rarely order oysters out, but getting a dozen, a martini and txistorras al vino feels pretty transportative.
→ MATT GRIFFIN, executive chef, Jeffrey’s Grocery: I’m pretty partial to Maine when it comes to oysters. I try to make it up to the Boothbay region every year. The water’s cold, the product is incredible, and there’s a real sense of place. Count me in for a couple dozen at spots like Mine Oyster, The Shuck Station, and Glidden Point Oyster Farm. In Damariscotta, The King Eider’s Pub is always shucking my personal fave, Pemaquids, from the Damariscotta River. You’re often eating oysters just steps from where they were pulled out of the water, which is hard to beat.
→ ANOOP PILLARISETTI, managing partner, Strange Delight: El Pingüino always ranks high among my favorites: simple, focused, and perfectly executed; it’s a celebration of really fantastic ingredients, all handled with great care. A perfect snacky meal can unfold at the bar on fall or winter nights, or in the lovely backyard when the weather is more welcoming. The oysters are always cold, shucked beautifully, and among the best in town; a plateau, a conserva, and a vermouth + soda (or a glass of sherry) are the makings of my perfect order.
This all-star crew shares their coolest oyster experiences below.
WORK • Friday Routine
Sons of New England
CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN • CEO • Island Creek Oysters
Places you work: Mass., Portland ME, & NYC facility in Bushwick
Place you live: Duxbury, MA
It’s Friday afternoon, how are you rolling into the weekend?
Under the Island Creek umbrella, we run a few different businesses: oyster farms (naturally), a nationwide fresh seafood distribution business, a tinned fish cannery, a caviar packing facility, an online direct-to-consumer hustle, and a restaurant group. It’s spread across three different states, so every day is vastly different. I’m deep in the weeds with almost all of it, so, like a kid with his toys, Fridays are my day to clean up the mess I’ve made in the first four days of the week. I cook breakfast for my four kids every morning. (I think they consume more smoked salmon than any children in North America — time will tell if this is a good thing.)
I do the two-minute trip to our Duxbury HQ and start my Friday morning meeting with Island Creek’s founder, Skip Bennett. From there, I try to get up and about and get my eyes on some of our product, checking in with the farm crew in the shop. Yes, I do get to eat a lot of oysters and caviar for work, but it is almost always early in the morning standing over a stainless steel table in a walk-in refrigerator, so it’s not as glamorous as it sounds. And, we actually have to taste through a lot of bad samples to find the good producers.
At the end of the day, I can almost always find Skip, some of our farm team, and a cadre of local regulars at the bar to start the weekend with a drink or three.
Where are you drinking or dining this weekend?
Over the weekend, I usually have a meal at The Winsor House, which is at our oyster farm. It’s an upscale fish house in a 19th-century ship captain’s mansion — and a bit of a passion project.
As far as NYC goes, I spent years living a double life, going back and forth to the city, getting our Bushwick facility off the ground and selling to chefs. I rented a room in the basement of the Malinowskis (who run Fishers Island Oysters and Billion Oyster Project) in Clinton Hill, heady times. I still harbor a deep love for eating in New York, especially at the iconic restaurants that have bought from us for years: Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe; Balthazar and Minetta Tavern; Dirty French; Cafe Lux and The Odeon; Via Carota; Cote and now Cocodaq; Estella; and (when I’m lucky) Per Se or Le Bernardin. In Fort Greene, Strange Delight is a new one I need to get in to see. Shoutout to Pamela at Le Gigot too! She’s maybe the most fascinating personality in an NYC kitchen.
Any weekend getaways?
Most winter weekends, we’re in Warren, VT. There’s no shortage of New Yorkers there, but for the four or five of you who haven’t been, I can’t say enough about what a cornucopia of incredible food and beverage that area of Vermont is. From Hen of the Wood to Mad Taco (in the Waitsfield strip mall next to Mehuron’s grocery store), it’s almost too good to be true.
The same can be said of midcoast Maine where we used to live and still spend a lot of time in the summer. Aragosta has put Deer Isle on the food tourism map (rightly so), but there are so many other great ways to eat on and around Penobscot Bay. We also have a little restaurant called The Shop in Portland, which is admittedly my favorite in our group, so stop there on your way up.
What was your last great vacation?
I travel a fair amount overseas for my job, and I want my kids to know New England’s charms as intimately as I do, so we keep things somewhat local. We do our vacations in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Quebec these days, skiing, sailing, fishing, and backpacking. A true vacation for me is being deep in the woods or way out at sea, more than it is staying at a fancy resort or hotel.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
I have a wooden sailboat that I’m in love with... but which is also a special kind of money pit, which I love less.
What store or service do you love to recommend?
Here’s a paradox for you: my two favorite stores are Best Made and Harbor Freight.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Object
Everything but the pearl
Having not grown up in an oyster-loving family, it was a great pleasure to marry into one. Not just for the chance to learn how they grow or to taste them fresh off a dock, but because an obsession with oysters opens up a world of easy gift-giving opportunities.
For example, we all spent one summer experimenting with oysters on the grill. It’s a great way to prepare them, because a) there’s no need to shuck the oysters, as they pop open over the hot flame, and b) you can melt butter as they lightly cook, creating a more novice-friendly texture than a raw slurp. The following Christmas, my in-laws were delighted to receive a cast iron oyster grill pan, which cuts down on the mess (and loss of precious oyster juice).
Now, I see oyster-themed gifts everywhere. Inside a French antiques store in Upstate New York, I discovered an array of antique silver oyster trays, which sent me down a rabbit hole. They’ve become an increasingly popular product in the last few years, especially amongst ceramicists. They’re a little kitsch and a fun addition to the slurpable treat. I’m particularly fond of Michelle Morton’s ocean-inspired rendition, and the freeform variety from Gloob Ceramics in Brooklyn. While the tray from Virginia Sin is simple, that also means it’s a safe gift for any home. I wish I had friends getting married on the beach this summer so I could get a custom oyster platter from Chell Fish (above), an acceptable off-registry gift.
The other day, I found out that JLD, a brilliant knife maker who makes pieces for restaurants and sells a select few during occasional online drops, makes a small, stainless steel oyster knife with a walnut handle. It’s a major upgrade from the plastic variety that comes with fish market oysters — and a thoughtful present for the oyster-lover in your life. –Sylvie Florman
GETAWAYS • Maine
Abide with me
It’s a minor tragedy that Eventide Oyster Company, which opened in Portland, Maine, 12 summers ago, has become so well-known for its brown-butter lobster roll. That roll — savory poached lobster, doused in brown butter, served on a soft bao bun — is a delight, but its fame can obscure the fact that Eventide is, at its core, one of the best pure oyster counters on the East Coast.
The Eventide oyster experience starts at the center of the restaurant’s main dining room, where a large sculpted rock, inlaid into the bar, cradles a sea of crushed ice and dozens of piles of oysters, each with a wooden tab denoting its source. If you’re someone who knows what size oyster you like, but can’t tell a John’s River from a Norumbega, it’s a crucial pre-order browse.
That shellshow is stocked primarily with varieties from the full expanse of Maine’s coastline, but also sometimes with choice ‘From Away’ oysters sourced further north in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, or Prince Edward Island. (I’ve never seen an oyster from anywhere south or west of Maine on Eventide’s daily offerings chalkboard, a statement unto itself.)
After choosing your oysters, you’ll also be specifying which two ices you’d like to accompany them. Eventide’s ices — granitas, flavored with traditional oyster accompaniments like horseradish and red onion, plus several more adventurous flavors — are a cornerstone of the oyster experience here, one of those simple, brilliant ideas that feels like everyone should be doing. I’d always wondered, but with Oyster Week on the books, I asked Eventide co-owner Andrew Taylor how he came up with the concept.
“When Eventide was in its incubation phase, we visited as many oyster bars in the northeast as we could in Portland, Boston, and New York,” Taylor told me. “We were struck by the lack of creativity regarding accompaniments. It seemed to be cocktail sauce, mignonette, and those little bottles of Tabasco everywhere we went.”
At that time, Taylor and his team ran the (now shuttered) Portland fine-dining restaurant Hugo’s, where they were experimenting with ices for oysters made with funky ingredients like foraged wild juniper, house-fermented chilis, and local sugar kelp dashi. “When we opened Eventide, we kept the idea but also focused on traditional accompaniments,” Taylor says. “The concept took off.”
Served alongside the oysters with a big wedge of lemon, the ice partly dissolves on contact with the oyster’s belly, subtly imparting its flavor while allowing the briny richness of the Atlantic Ocean to come through. As ever with great oysters (and perhaps even more so here), when it hits just right, it’s absolutely sublime. –Lockhart Steele
→ Eventide Oyster Company (Portland, ME) • 86 Middle St • Daily 11a-11p • Walk-ins only.
INTEL • Oyster Week
What’s the coolest oyster experience you’ve ever had?
→ JOHN MCDONALD, restaurateur, Lure Fishbar & Seahorse: About 20 years ago, I went to a restaurant just outside of Normandy for a friend’s wedding. The place, Au Pied d’Cheval, still sticks in my memory. We walked out into the ocean with the oyster farmers, opened oysters, and ate them precisely at the moment they were pulled out.
→ MARY ATTEIA: There’s a small boat rental called Jetty Fishery and Marina along the coast of Oregon, on the Nehalem River. Before (or after) you embark on a leisurely boat ride up the coast, there’s a seafood shack attached where you can get live oysters, clams, crabs, and more. Pass the time by shucking your own oysters while they steam up a seafood boil. Along with an ice cold beer and the picturesque views, it can’t be beat.
→ CODY PRUITT: Just before COVID, I was lucky enough to spend just shy of a week in Normandy, where the daily routine was shucking oysters on the beach with a Calvados and tonic in hand. No pretense, no affectation, no ego, nothing extra, nothing missing. Everything made sense, and nothing had ever felt more necessary.
→ FORREST FLORSHEIM: In California’s Marin County, Tony’s Seafood is a seafood shack right off the road on Tomales Bay. Eating oysters so close to the source along with some clam chowder… that’s a perfect lunch.
→ MATT GRIFFIN: Getting out to Island Creek Oysters in Duxbury, MA and seeing their hatchery and farm operation up close is always an amazing, eye-opening experience. After geeking out on behind-the-scenes farm stuff, they close with ice cold oysters and beer — can’t beat that! In NYC, every year I look forward to the Billion Oyster Party. Great people, great cause, great times. It’s such a fun event, but it also feels bigger than that. It’s about rebuilding the harbor and the future of oysters in New York, which is pretty special.
→ ANOOP PILLARISETTI: When we were opening Strange Delight, we visited a few oyster farms out on Long Island. We were met with great hosts, incredible oysters, and an informative introduction to this wonderful little local foodway. Growing up in Louisiana (and this has changed significantly in recent years!), the question of where oysters came from was always a bit of a black box: the expansive “Gulf” was the most detail you’d get back then.
So, many years later, being reintroduced to the oyster through this vibrant farming community, just 80 or so miles away from Strange Delight, was incredible. Through these farm visits — and I’m thinking of one in particular, Peeko Oysters — we gained significant insight into how micro-climates, farming methods, and harvesting styles could impact the little mollusk we chose to celebrate. And then the best part: we got to shuck and eat oysters that had been freshly harvested that morning, gathered around a standing table where the dock met the land, drinking ice cold beer with a cool coastal breeze blowing over us, planning how we could find our own little way to contribute to this rich history — perfection.
RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Seafood towers
9 of the best in NYC
Seahorse (Union Square), new-to-menu ‘Oyster Royale’ yields 6 oysters each of 5 daily offerings, $125 per, reserve
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