Check back here for new oyster tastings and reviews of oyster bars and festivals.
Everybody talks about fall being the season for oysters, and it is, but recent tastings have convinced me that the narrow window for spring oysters—think May, plus a week on either end—provides some of the tastiest of the year. Fall oysters are filled with glycogen, but spring oysters have an altogether brighter flavor, heavy on […]
Another heavyweight from Point Judith Pond, Rhode Island (home of Moonstones), Salt Ponds are oyster-lover’s oysters: big, bountiful, and intensely flavorful. If you made a demi-glace with seawater, you’d approximate the concentrated tidepool brine of a Salt Ponds. They are unusually metallic for a virginica, with hints of the iron and petrol flavors found in […]
What’s that, you didn’t know that on Sunday, June 8, at Lincoln Center, “A Geography of Oysters” scored a James Beard Award as one of the best food books of the year? I’d like to think that JB himself, a prodigious oyster eater, would have approved. If you’ve been holding out, waiting to see if […]
On April 7, 2008, at the Westin Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, twenty all-star virginicas competed for the title of Best Tasting Oyster in a major blind tasting. Many of my favorites, including Moonstones, Watch Hills, Island Creeks, Pemaquids, Katama Bays, Mystics, and Totten Virginicas, threw their hats in the ring. The judges included such bivalve virtuosos […]
Famously sandy Katama Bay, home of postcard-perfect beaches, separates Chappaquiddick Island from the rest of Martha’s Vineyard. Katama, which means “crab-fishing place” in the original Wampanoag, is a shellfish bonanza. Clamdiggers and scallopers cruise its shallow waters, and oysters sit happily on that nice, solid substrate and get scrubbed clean in the currents, accounting for […]
On six acres of Dyers Creek, one of the most remote peninsulas in Virginia, Jack White grows the most beautiful and robust oyster on the Chesapeake. Lovingly tended by White, New Points develop indestructible shells that seem almost like bottomless pits: the oyster keeps going down, down, all the way to the end of the […]
If you ever dreamed about growing oysters in some romantic tidewater paradise, Snow Hills will fit your fantasy. Grown north of Chincoteague in the Maryland end of Chincoteague Bay, Snow Hills are an improvement on the famous Chincoteague Salts. Farther up the bay, they get a little less ocean water, giving them a perfect (to […]
On April 7, 2008, at the Westin Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, twenty all-star virginicas competed for the title of Best Tasting Oyster in a major blind tasting. Many of my favorites, including Moonstones, Watch Hills, Island Creeks, Pemaquids, Katama Bays, Mystics, and Totten Virginicas, threw their hats in the ring. The judges included such bivalve virtuosos […]
Yes, Blue Points, that most abused of oyster appellations. But not just any Blue Points. After a century of exile, real Blue Points are once again growing in their ancestral home—Long Island’s Great South Bay. Thank Chris Quartuccio, who used to make his living diving for wild oysters in Long Island Sound. A huge set […]
Dennis, a town on the flexing bicep of Cape Cod, grows some of its most quintessential oysters—briny, rich, and supple, like a well-seasoned tenderloin. Grown by John and Stephanie Lowell of East Dennis Oyster Farm, these deep-cupped bivalves give you everything you’d expect from a Wellfleet—more reliably. In fact, they won Best Oyster at the […]
The Oyster Company Raw Bar and Grill
202 Depot Street, Dennisport, MA; 508-398-4600
I have a special place in my heart for restaurants that serve their own oysters. That’s the case with this Cape Cod gem, called “The best oyster bargain in Massachusetts” by the Boston Globe. Owner Gerry Bojanowski keeps the twisting zinc bar piled with […]
Like a spruce-lined snowscape, the green and white ridges of Mystic oysters scream winter in New England to me. Grown by the Noank Aquaculture Cooperative in Fisher Island Sound, off the Connecticut coast, Mystics are as pretty an east coast oyster as you’ll ever see. For that we can thank Steve Plant, who resists shortcuts […]
After I put a recipe for the Oystertini in my book, I received a letter from Dr. Gil Levin, a Maryland inventor, setting the record straight:
“I must call your attention to a gross injustice you commit on p. 253 by taking ‘all the blame’ (meaning the glory) for the oysterini. Rowan, the oysterini is MY invention! […]
I don’t usually list restaurant groups, but I must make an exception for The Oceanaire, because they get all the little touches just right. When you walk into any of the sixteen 1930s-style Oceanaires (San Diego, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston) you stare straight […]
Boston has many a good oyster bar, but it’s got nothing else quite like Neptune Oyster. In fact, neither does anywhere else. Look around this tiny North End gem and you’re convinced you are in a Paris bistro—that is, until you look at the menu, when you instantly know you’re in New England. Neptune carries […]
Okay, Pickle Points aren’t a new discovery, but I did discover this New Year’s Eve that they are absolutely plump and creamy-sweet right now. Pickle Point is a point shaped like, yes, a pickle (squint hard), and it’s in PEI National Park, not far from Raspberry Point. Indeed, the same man, Scott Linklater, grows both […]
Baltimore’s oyster renaissance just took a huge leap forward with the birth of Ryleigh’s Oyster House in 2007.
Baltimore, with its strategic spot at the head of the
Chesapeake Bay, used to be the queen of oyster towns, with more shucking houses than any other. But its fortunes declined along with the
Chesapeake oyster. Today, the […]
Great news for oyster eaters everywhere: American Mussel Harvesters is now taking direct orders online. Especially if you live in
New England, they should be your first stop for a variety of quality oysters. You’ll get ‘em faster and fresher than from anywhere else. You can select between Pacific and
Atlantic varieties, and use the terrific in-depth […]
Quonset Points, the classic
Narragansett Bay oyster, are at their peak of flavor right now and worth seeking out. The ones I just had were brinier than I remembered Quonsets being, with the same deep cups they always have. The bottom shells had an extraordinary orangeish color that I’ve never seen on an oyster before—no doubt […]
Stop the presses. A relatively new, truly great oyster has arrived. Winter Points must take their place beside Glidden Points and Pemaquids as the quintessential
Maine oysters. (In fact, they always have been. Though they are new on the market, the area where they live has been a saltwater farm for more than 300 years.) […]
In case you haven’t heard, the National Park Service has announced that it plans to shut down the Drake’s Bay Oyster Farm in 2012. Background: Drake’s Estero is a pristine estuary that delves miles into Point Reyes National Seashore. The oyster farm, which has been there since the 1950s, has the cleanest waters of any […]
Wild oysters from Chatham, right at Cape Cod’s elbow, have grabbed the yellow jersey in the competition for Best Fall Oyster ’07. These beauties, hand-picked at low tide by two friends of mine from Chatham’s ancient oyster ponds and tide flats, have four-to-six-inch, deep-cupped shells of white and metallic gray-green, touched with bits of rust […]
The title for “Best Oyster Fun in DC” goes to Hank’s Oyster Bar, which opened in 2005 in DC and became a huge hit. A second, more casual branch opened in Oldtown Alexandria last month, for lunch as well as dinner. Partners Sandy Lewis and Jamie Leeds have created a warm and intimate setting, and […]
A new oyster to look for in the Chesapeake Region is Dragon Creek. Coming from Nomini Creek, up on the Eastern Shore, with a salinity of about 15 ppt, it was the mildest oyster I’d had in some time—a classic Chesapeake style. Dragon Creeks have a nice four-inch size, good plumpness, and pretty, creamy shells. […]
For one night, on October 2nd, Bear Pond Books, in Montpelier, Vermont, was the hoppingest oyster joint in the landlocked states. Those who attended heard a lively reading from, ahem, a new oyster book called A Geography of Oysters and then filled themselves with four varieties of oysters and six wines and sakes. The oysters:
Oysterponds […]
The award for best oysters of the fall so far goes to Fishers Island. I sampled all three of their varieties this week and was stunned by the fresh, firm, sweet meats. Fishers Island, just off the Connecticut coast, has been one of the most important oyster hatcheries for decades. Many of the best oysters […]
Here’s my favorite shirt I’ve seen in some time. It comes from (and is modeled by) Brent Petkau. Brent, producer of the famed Courtesan oyster of remote Cortes Island, in the far reaches of British Columbia, is a great enthusiast of All Things Oyster. You can get the shirt, the oyster, smoked oysters (among the […]
Sho Chiku Bai Nama Sake, an organic sake brewed by Takara Sake in Berkeley, is the best U.S. sake with oysters, and one of the best drinks with oysters period. Its extremely smooth, full-bodied, and fruity flavor screams out for Kumamotos or a sweet Pacific oyster like a Hog Island Sweetwater, but it also pairs […]
Recently, a number of people have been asking me about pairing wine with oysters. It’s a much more difficult combo than many people think: most oysters slay most white wines, due to their high umami content. But when it works, it’s truly a match made in heaven. Here are my seven rules for making it […]
Visited Maestro S.V.P. in Montreal to see what was new with Canadian oysters. Had a plate of Beausoleils, which were godawful: tiny, shrunken, a couple even tasted spawny. Now, Beausoleils are consistently good (if small) oysters, so this just confirms my rule to Never Eat Oysters in August! A health alert the next day of […]