Probably the most frequent question asked us by those who come to San
Francisco is: "Where can we get the best fish?" With San Francisco's
wonderful natural advantages as a fish market one is sometimes surprised
that more attention is not given to preparing fish as a specialty. But
one restaurant in the city deals exclusively with sea food, and even
there one is astonished at an overlooked opportunity.
Darbee & Immel have catered to San Francisco in oysters for many years
and after the fire they opened the Shell Fish Grotto, in O'Farrell
street, between Powell and Mason streets, and this is one of the very
few distinctive fish restaurants of the country. It is when one
considers the possibilities that a shock comes from the environing
decorations. White and gold pillars, with twining ivy reaching to the
old gold and rose mural and ceiling embellishments seem out of place in
a restaurant that is devoted entirely to catering to lovers of fish.
Nothing in the place indicates its character except the big lobster in
front of the building. Not even so much as a picture to bring a
sentiment of the ocean to the mind.
We are going to take a liberty, and possibly Darbee & Immel may call it
an impertinence, and give them a bit of advice. It costs them nothing
consequently they can act on it or not and it will make no difference.
This is our suggestion:
Change the interior of the place entirely by having around the walls a
series of large glass aquaria, with as many different kinds of fish
swimming about as it is possible to get; something on the order of the
interior of the aquarium in Battery Park in New York. Paint the ceiling
to represent the surface of the water as seen from below. Have seaweed
and kelp in place of ivy, and a fish net or two caught up in the corners
of the room, with here and there a starfish or a crab--not too many, for
profuseness in this sort of decoration is an abomination. Then you will
have a restaurant that will be talked about wherever people sit at meat.
But to get back to our talk about fish, and where to get it prepared and
cooked the best. We must say that the finest fish we have eaten in San
Francisco was not in the high-priced restaurants at all, but in a
little, dingy back room, down at Fishermen's Wharf, where there was sand
on the floor and all the sounds of the kitchen were audible in the
dining room. The place was patronized almost solely by the Italian
fishermen who not only know how to catch a fish but how it ought to be
cooked. One may always rest assured that when he gets a fish in one of
the Italian restaurants it is perfectly fresh, for there are two things
that an Italian demands in eating, and they are fresh fish and fresh
vegetables.
At the Gianduja at Union and Stockton streets, one is certain to get
fish cooked well and that it is perfectly fresh. The variety is not so
good as at the Shell Fish Grotto, but otherwise it is just as good in
every respect. At the Grotto there is a wonderful variety but the
quantity is at the minimum because there, too, they will have no fish
that has been twenty-four hours out of the water.
One wonders how a full course dinner entirely of fish can be prepared,
but if you will go to the Shell Fish Grotto you will find that it is
done, and done well at that. Here you can get a good dinner for one
dollar, or if you prefer it they have a Fish Dinner de Luxe for which
they charge two dollars. Both are good, the latter having additional
wines and delicacies.
Down in Washington street, just off Columbus avenue, is the Vesuvius, an
Italian restaurant of low price, but excellent cooking. A specialty
there is fish which is always brought fresh from the nearby Clay street
market as ordered, consequently is perfect. When you give your order a
messenger is dispatched to the market and usually he brings the fish
alive and the chef prepares it in one of his many ways, for he is said
to have more secrets about the cooking of fish than one would think it
possible for one brain to contain. The trouble about this restaurant is
that the rest of the menu does not come up to the fish standard, but if
you desire a simple luncheon of fish there is no better place to get it.
There are three things in which an Easterner will be disappointed in San
Francisco, and these are oysters. Pacific Coast oysters fail in size,
flavor and cooking, when compared with the luscious bivalve of the
Atlantic, so far as the ordinary forms of preparation is concerned. Even
fancy dishes, such as Oysters Kirkpatrick, would be better if made of
the eastern oyster, not what they call the eastern oyster here, for that
is a misnomer, but the oysters that grow in the Atlantic Ocean.
Of the Pacific oysters the best is the Toke Point, that comes from
Oregon. They are similar in size to the Blue Point, but lack the flavor.
When, in a San Francisco restaurant, you are asked what sort of oyster
you will have, and you see the familiar names on the menu card, remember
that these are transplanted oysters, and have lost much of their flavor
in the transplanting, or else they are oysters that have been shipped
across the continent and have thereby lost their freshness.
The California oyster proper, is very small, and it has a peculiar
coppery taste, which bon vivants declare adds to its piquancy. Instead
of ordering these by the dozen you order them by the hundred, it being
no difficult task to eat an hundred at a meal, especially when prepared
in a pepper roast.
Everyone knows the staple ways of preparing oysters, and every chef
looks upon the oyster as the source of new flavors in many dishes, but
to our mind the best way we have found in San Francisco was at a little
restaurant down in Washington street before the fire. It was the Buon
Gusto, where they served fish and oysters better than anything else
because the owners were the chefs, and they were from the island of
Catalan, off the coast of Italy. Their specialty was called "Oysters a
la Catalan," and their recipe, which is given, can be prepared
excellently in a chafing dish: