Washington - In one of countless seafood experiments that could wind upon
the menu of his forthcoming restaurant, the Washington chef salt-dried the orange
segment-shaped pouches, bursting with roe, until they hardened into bottarga.
The Italian delicacy was grated over fresh pasta to add a briny kick.
"They were so good," he said, a wide grin parting
the beard that has grown thick since he left Birch & Barley a year ago to
eventually open the Salt Line, a New England-style seafood restaurant on Washington's waterfront,
this summer. "They taste like the ocean, man."
Bailey is now at the Sixth Engine restaurant in the
District. Though the preparation was Italian, the roe-filled perch were
harvested from a Chesapeake Bay river much
closer to home. They were part of one of many deliveries Bailey will be
receiving as the first Washington
restaurant working with Dock to Dish, a program growing nationally that applies
the weekly farm box model to something chefs rarely get to source so directly:
seafood.
Dock to Dish is building its deliveries on the back of the
first community supported fishery (CSF), which launched last year. A spin-off
from the Oyster Recovery Partnership, Old Line Fish. was the first in the
region to offer home cooks in and around Annapolis
biweekly bags of bay species such as soft-shell clams, blue catfish and blue
crabs last summer. Cooks pay upfront for the season, about $45 a bag, which
includes three to four pounds of seafood.
Read also: Chef Bonga cooking up a storm for royalty
Old Line's founder, Kelly Barnes, will run the Dock to Dish
program here, making those same sources available to restaurant chefs who are
ready to receive whatever the boats bring in. Washington is the fourth city to
welcome the program that's already working with chefs like Eric Ripert, Mario
Batali and April Bloomfield in New York City and Thomas Keller in the San
Francisco area.
"I think D.C. desperately needs this," said Dock
to Dish co-founder Sean Barrett, a native of Montauk, New
York, who used to visit Washington's
seafood markets while attending Catholic
University in the 1990s.
"I always had in mind that DC would be a great place to reconnect chefs to
the source."
While Washington
chefs are increasingly sourcing their beef, pork and produce from local farms,
seafood deliveries still tend to come through conventional distribution
channels. Even with the advent of QR codes and sustainability programs, those
products are more likely than others to arrive mislabelled in part because 90
percent of the country's seafood is still sourced or processed overseas before
it reaches consumers.
The conservation non-profit Oceana used DNA testing in a
2015 study to find the Chesapeake Bay's most iconic species, Maryland blue
crab, was impersonated in 38 percent of the crab cakes that used the moniker on
menus in the region.
An earlier study found red snapper mislabelled on Washington menus 100 percent of the time.Barrett thinks Washington chefs will be
eager to try a new source. In New York City, the
waiting list of restaurants wanting to work with Dock to Dish has grown to
include 250 names since the program landed its first chef customer in 2013, the
forward-thinking Dan Barber of Blue Hill in Manhattan.
"None of this would matter if the fish weren't of
impeccable quality," said Barber, who has introduced Barrett to many of
the top-tier chefs now working with the program. "It's not just that it's
fresh, but we're working with fishermen that are catching fish at the moment it
should be caught.That's kind of a new idea."
Dock to Dish's founder saw Bailey, 36, as a fitting chef to
carry the program's torch into a new market. Early in his career, Bailey was
steeped in Barber's local-sourcing philosophies during a stint at Blue Hill at
Stone Barns starting in 2007. He carried the mantra to Washington's Neighbourhood Restaurant Group
in 2009, where he worked closely with local farmers to build menus at ChurchKey
and Birch & Barley.
At Birch & Barley, Bailey honed his charcuterie skills,
using every part of whole animals. Now he is translating those practices to the
bounty he's getting from local waters.Barnes has been delivering test-run
batches to the restaurant Sixth Engine, where Bailey has been experimenting for
the past year, trying to challenge him with new species that could be included
in Dock to Dish deliveries.
"It's like catch of the day on steroids," said
Jeremy Carman, one of three co-owners of the Long Shot Hospitality group behind
the Salt Line, named for the brackish waters where salt water meets fresh
water. "I think not knowing what you're going to get keeps these guys
moving."
There was the cooler full of snakelike Chesapeake
Bay eels, the large ones that local fishermen such as Bunky Chance
and Moochie Gilmer easily catch but often use for bait. Bailey and his chef de
cuisine Mike O'Brien found the meaty, white flesh took well to smoke. They
turned some of it into unagi, the Japanese word for eel, with soy-barbecue
sauce, and roasted the rest Italian-style with rosemary.
For Barnes, part of the fun is seeing what Bailey does with
what she delivers; especially when it's fish she probably couldn't hook home
cooks on yet.
"I would love to be able to bring more attention to the
fishery, because right now they all get exported or used for bait. But your
average Joe Blow is going to be like, 'What the heck?' “She said.
Barnes got a similar reaction when she gave CSF customers a
couple dozen soft-shell clams in their shares, their siphons hanging ominously
out of the shells. Most of the clams that are harvested in the Chesapeake Bay
are sold to New England markets, where they're often served as steamers and
called "Ipswich clams" after the Massachusetts town where Carman was raised.
But, for their New England-inspired, Chesapeake-sourced
menu, "I want those clams," Bailey says. "Dock to Dish has
definitely helped with that, cutting several steps out of the chain of custody
so we can get fresh product."
Bailey says the restaurant will still work with other
seafood purveyors, especially Washington
standbys like Profish and J.J. McDonnell, that are working to deliver more
traceable and local seafood supplies to area restaurants. Locally raised
oysters will likely come to the Salt Line directly from the growers, many of
whom already deliver to chefs.
Dock to Dish will round out those offerings with the best of
what's available each week. A pile of peak-season rockfish might star as an
entree, while a mixed bag of blue catfish, eels and clams might show up
throughout the menu.
Bailey says he's eager to show Washington what the region has to offer,
"not because 'it's the right thing to do' but because it tastes
better," he said. "We're constantly chasing that."