On the Rocks in the Artist’s District

Deeply attractive to some diners and intensely repulsive to others, oysters are an unusually engrossing food. They should be savored slowly with the tongue, slipping by unnoticed if swallowed in one cold sip without even an echo of an aftertaste- but with their gourmet price tag, why bother ordering if not to explore?

One doesn’t have to be a foodie to find the folds of salty, gray-pink of oyster flesh an aphrodisiac. In the 1985 Japanese film Tampopo, an erotic comedy about the pursuit of creating a perfect menu, a traveling yakuza approaches a young female oyster diver, who shucks an oyster for the traveler and extends it towards him. He leans in to eat the catch out of her tiny hand but cuts his lip on the bivalve’s bony shell. Excited by the sight of the stranger’s blood mixing with the soft tissue in her palm, the girl kisses him on the mouth.

Formed from the lightness of salt and sea, oysters are at their best when they are bare, fresh, and local. The object of desire in this case was a Kumamoto oyster, a deep-shelled lover of balmy waters.

So what do the warehouses of Williamsburg, Brooklyn have to do with the salt of the sea? Restaurants dedicated to these delicacies have been served by the dozen in the past year. The neighborhood of young artists and historically low-income families have been re-imagined as a hotspot for upscale dining, but even if recent residents can afford to splurge on seafood, oysters don’t fit with the vegetarian, Asian and South American fare that dominates the district.

Ankita Mishra, 21, a college senior and part-time educator at The Rubin Museum of Art, dines on oysters two Fridays a month in the West Village, but is amenable to having them closer to her Bushwick home, where a dedicated bar has opened just two blocks from her apartment.

“I think that oysters don’t have to be crazy expensive, because they’re cheap for a restaurant to have. They are specialty items that draw people in, and they go well with drinks,” she says. “On one hand, it does seem like these places have a desire to be fancier, but oysters are ‘different’ and fit into the Brooklyn, East Williamsburg and Bushwick interest.”

Her favorite pieces are bright blue-cased bivalves from New Zealand, which she enjoys with champagne.

Fishermen harvested sheets of oysters, specifically Bluepoints, from the New York Harbor until twentieth-century pollution choked the bay surrounding the city. Although they are now imported from other east-and-west coast states, bivalves are still an iconic part of New York’s gastronomy. Tourists come from the world over to snack at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, one of the creature’s top American importers, with the menu price to match.

Four years ago, a sign simply stating “Bar/Oysters” was tacked outside a door on Bedford Avenue. With two magic ingredients: absinthe and bivalves, Maison Premiere positioned itself as a spot for the professional working adults of Williamsburg, a demographic that has had enough torque to turn the area into a dining destination.   

Behind the bar is a dining room reserved for seafood.  Two white-coated gents shuck oysters out of troughs of ice piled behind a dining bar and serve them immediately on platters by the dozen. The waiters, who are primped and polished in vintage button-down vests and trousers, explain the oceanic origins of each meal to diners.

The Premiere sources its forty-plus varieties of seafood, including crab legs and lobster tails, from more than 100 merchants and farmers along both coasts. Maxwell Britten, Maison’s red-headed, twenty-something beverage director, prefers to pair the menu with wormwood-based absinthe, the eatery’s specialty spirit.

Blanche, or white, absinthe from Switzerland complements oysters best with notes of star anise, hyacinth, lemon balm, and fennel, he says. The mix, as well as the precise service, goes over well with local foodies. A daily happy-hour is a hook, with $1 oysters sold during the hours before the dinner rush.

“What we do here is driven by hospitality, which isn’t common in an environment of young artists and musicians,” he says. “We work to re-create an authentic vintage experience, down to our French-style absinthe fountain. It’s an atmosphere of general bacchanalia.”

Not all diners are impressed by the restaurant’s carefully groomed vintage appeal, focusing more on the authenticity of their food.

“They’re a little wimpy,” commented one Thursday-night customer visiting from New Jersey, pointing to his dozen half-shells. “If you want an oyster with meat in it, then you have to go down to New Orleans; even these things stick to your ribs there. You don’t go to the sit down places, though, if you want real seafood; you go to the hole-in-the-wall joints.”

Funny that the diner in question was sharing the table with the same oyster species found down south.

Land-locked foodies, however, can now go east to find variety with the opening of The Morgan, a “new American” place near Morgan Avenue, further down the L-train line.

Chef Kyle McClelland, 30, formerly dished out seafood at a chateau in Nantucket, and at Caviar Russe in midtown, which he names as the largest caviar importer in the U.S. He now enjoys working in this quiet, up-and-coming former industrial zone.

McClelland works with seafood companies from New Jersey and the Bronx, which sources marine life, such as mussels, from as far as Canada’s King Edward Island. Water location and quality show through the flesh, he says.

“I prefer East Coast oysters, which are meatier, saltier, and brinier when compared to milky, fruity West Coast ones.” He believes that both pair well with champagne or a chilled Riesling, and even beer.  

Just like the food, the chef prefers his brew local, citing Brooklyn summer ales with shades of lemon and fruit.  Although the days when Williamsburg residents could get their fare straight from the Brooklyn bay, they can once again enjoy seafood along the waterfront.