Pearls of wisdom
Tips for a great raw oyster program
What leads up to that first luxurious gulp of oyster? From purchasing to storing to shucking and serving, here’s how to create an oyster experience that engages all the senses.
Presentation: The visual
Every oyster has its own beauty. Putting half shells in the spotlight can be one mark of an oyster program done right.
The seafood tower at Ocean Prime Boston, part of a 14-unit chain of upscale seafood restaurants by Cameron Mitchell, tends to turn heads when delivered to the table.
The Smoking Shellfish Tower
The tower — which includes oysters on the half shell, as well as other seafood — is draped in bright green seaweed and billowing with puffs of smoke, thanks to pellets of dry ice and a last-second splash of water.“Once we send one out of the kitchen and the server walks it out, we know there will be a bunch more orders for the tower coming in,” said Mitch Brumels, the restaurant’s executive chef. “It’s kind of a show.”
The right kind of ice is key for serving oysters, whether on something elaborate like the tower or a simple platter with a drain to keep the presentation from getting waterlogged. At Ocean Prime, one ice machine is dedicated to oysters, producing ice that’s perfectly flaked.
The setting is part of the presentation at Merroir in Topping, Va., the site of the Chesapeake Bay oyster farm and the location that started it all for the Rappahannock Oyster Co.’s group of restaurants.
Brothers Travis and Ryan Croxton’s growing oyster restaurant empire began on the scenic plot of land and sea where they revived their grandfather’s oyster company — and, some would say, the Chesapeake Bay’s whole oyster farming industry by bringing the latest advances in aquaculture to the area.
The Croxton brothers have two locations in Richmond, Va., including Rappahannock restaurant and Rapp Session oyster saloon; as well as oyster bar locations in Washington, D.C., Charleston, S.C., and another slated to open in Los Angeles in September.
For Ryan Croxton, that first location on Chesapeake Bay is the purest, most stripped-down experience, truly connecting the oyster eater with the water.
“Merroir is one in a million. It is not repeatable,” Croxton said. “That’s where the farm is, and chefs would always ask me to come try our oysters. So we opened a tasting room.
oysters., rappsession
“It’s very low key and simplistic,” he added. “It’s not a chef-led restaurant like our other restaurants. It’s more about honoring what comes out of the bay. We don’t want the place to ever get complicated.”
The name Merroir is a play on the word terroir, and in the same way that soil and climate affects the taste of wine, the state of the ocean influences the flavor of oysters.
“We ripped off the terminology of wine and the whole business approach, and people really responded to it,” Croxton said.
Taste and how to talk about it
To feed the need for oyster satisfaction, servers must be able to speak with authority on the characteristics and backstory of each oyster on the menu.