The executive chef of BlackSalt in Washington thinks two things tend to separate better seafood restaurants from the swarm. “Reputation is a big thing,” says Jeff Gaetjen, whose employer in the Palisades has been pulling in fish fans for 16 years and whose ingredients beckon from beds of ice in BlackSalt’s front market.
Gaetjen also looks for variety on the menu. “Anyone can do mahi-mahi tacos,” he says. Solid sources allow a proper seafood establishment to offer not just the usual suspects — local soft-shell crabs, rockfish — but treasures from far away, such as John Dory from New Zealand and West Coast oysters, even during a pandemic.
Weeks of exploring the area’s many fishing holes found me most eager to return to the following trio, all of which have experience, and plenty of choices, in their favor.
If you need proof that less is more, look no further than the 10-ounce crab bomb at Jerry’s Seafood in Bowie. It’s pretty much all blue crab, bound with house-whipped mayonnaise: rich on rich, oh so good, the size of a softball and made just the way it’s been since Jerry Gainey opened the original restaurant in Lanham in 1983.
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Gainey sold the business in 2003 to his nephew, Philip Gainey, and Jason Lee, who opened a second branch in Bowie a dozen years ago. The original shuttered in 2015. What remains is a Prince George’s County institution outfitted with four walk-up windows to handle takeout and a shipping business that’s 10 times bigger than before the pandemic. Can’t make it to the shore this summer? Let a taste of the beach come to you.
Weekly, the kitchen goes through as much as 4,000 pounds of crab, specifically blue crab culled from the Carolinas, Louisiana, Texas and Venezuela. Be sure your order starts with soup, preferably the peerless Maryland crab soup crammed with corn, tomato and lima beans in addition to nuggets of sweet seafood. The crab cakes, including a six-ounce “baby,” come with a choice of two sides. Permit me to choose for you the peppery, onion-laced green beans and the coleslaw that’s made fresh daily, using Philip Gainey’s grandmother’s recipe. (Stewed tomatoes are as sweet as I remember from 15 years ago, but that’s actually a compliment. Jerry’s Seafood is nothing if not consistent.)
The Southern charms extend to steamed shrimp dusted with Old Bay, every bite sea-sweet and zesty; mild fried catfish sporting a crisp cornmeal jacket; and a slab of moist coconut cake that’s plenty for two to share — but good luck with that.
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The seafood magnet ships its (fresh) crab cakes anywhere in the country, but it doesn’t deliver. Gainey doesn’t trust anyone other than his staff, including a school of family members, to handle local drop-offs. Part of the fun of Jerry’s Seafood is picking up in person, chilling in the parking lot and people-watching. “Come early” is the best advice Philip can offer customers who hope to avoid the inevitable lines.
Jerry Gainey is 81 now and living in Prince Frederick, Md., where he owns Jerry’s Place, featuring a menu that hews closely to the cooking at Jerry’s Seafood. One big difference: There’s no crab bomb. When Jerry sold his business, he surrendered the rights to the trademarked dish. But the veteran restaurateur has replaced it with something even bigger. Weighing in at a full pound is the strapping Grand-Dad.
15211 Major Landsdale Blvd., Bowie. 301-805-2284. jerrysseafood.com. Open 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. Takeout only, no delivery. Dinner entrees $32 to $42.
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Think “War and Peace” menus have gone the way of the buffet? You haven’t read the list at BlackSalt, which lists the restaurant’s most popular lunch and dinner dishes on a single, all-day program. “Jeff Black likes a big menu,” says executive chef Jeff Gaetjen of his boss. The possibilities are greater still when you consider customers can pluck something from the restaurant’s fish market and have it prepared like something else on the list.
The CliffsNotes retelling of a recent takeout meal found me lapping every drop of chilled pea soup, lit with lemon zest and capped with minty ricotta; scraping a carton of poke in search of every last glistening cube of salmon tossed with rice vinegar, red Fresno chiles, fresh ginger and more; admiring the simplicity of wood-grilled calamari kissed with lemon; chomping into a burger whose housemade brioche bun and fried onions matched a patty shaped from brisket and short ribs; and admiring a Thai stew in two parts. One box contained soft scallops, head-on prawns, mussels and clams; another held coconut milk flavored with green curry, galangal, lime leaves and … suffice it to say, once the parts merged at home, Bangkok was on my mind all night.
The name Maddy Morrissey is a green light to order dessert. The pastry chef’s sweet somethings go beyond the same-old to include handsome versions of uncommon desserts. When’s the last time you saw Hummingbird (banana-pineapple) cake and a raspberry-brightened, meringue-buttoned Eton Mess anywhere, let alone on the same stage? From start to finish, front to back, BlackSalt goes above and beyond.
4883 MacArthur Blvd. 202-342-9101. blacksaltrestaurant.com. Open 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily. Takeout, indoor dining, delivery (via Door Dash, Grub Hub and Uber Eats). Sandwiches and entrees $18 to $51.
At Pesce in Dupont Circle, the soft-shell crab is framed in juicy pineapple sambal, and spare ribs share their carton with a papaya salad that brings tears to the eyes. The Asian accents are in keeping with the life story of chef-owner Andrew LaPorta. Born in Malaysia, the son of a Foreign Service officer is a self-described “diplo-brat” who went on to marry a woman from Laos. The exposure explains some of the excellent eating in his seafood oasis, now open for both inside and alfresco dining, as well as takeout.
LaPorta’s menu is laced with lovely surprises, including walleye, which he outfits with a walnut crust. “It’s an underrated fish,” says the chef, whose mother is from Ohio and who keeps fond memories of Midwestern fish fries. As a Minnesota native, I second the chef’s declaration and appreciate walleye just as much in the form of fish and chips. The fish, firm and mild, arrives in a batter made from semolina flour and alongside some of the best fries in recent memory. LaPorta cuts russets into a cold brine, where the potatoes soak overnight. The next day, they get par-fried and fried again before they’re sprinkled with curry and kelp powder — “the original MSG,” cracks the chef — which also keeps the spice blend from becoming bitter.
Maybe you want to splurge. Let the grilled Maine lobster with potatoes cooked in duck fat adorn your table. The glorious entree, stuffed with scallops, shrimp and local crab, comes with lemon-garlic butter, but save the liquid gold for something else, because LaPorta adds to his stuffing both bechamel and hollandaise, sauces that puff up in the cooking and create what goes down like spoonbread. A little levity comes by way of coleslaw speckled with celery seed and shocked with Dijon mustard.
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Elsewhere on the menu, Pesce’s fine, crusty crab cake relies on crab picked by hand on Kent Island and saltines to hold the goodness together. Linguine with shrimp is fragrant with garlic and showered with diced bacon that the chef cures himself. (The shrimp are shell-on, by the way, to retain moisture.) Hungry for halibut collar or wild Dover sole? Pesce has you covered. The meaty pork spare ribs, marinated in black bean paste and Coke, are further sweetened after a roll in (surprise!) crushed Cap’n Crunch. Good thing the dish is served with a papaya salad, a fiery foil and as good as any you’ll find for miles.
Given how so much has changed on the dining landscape, seeing something tried and true is cathartic. I love that Pesce has retained its signature roving blackboard menu, a tradition that’s as earth-friendly as it is reassuring. “That’s not going anywhere,” says LaPorta.
2002 P St. NW. 202-466-3474. pescedc.com. Open 5:30 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Indoor and outdoor dining, takeout, delivery (via Postmates). Dinner entrees $26 to $45.
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