The owner of Seafood Sally’s was a recent guest on the Food Show. As so often happens, I am a great example of what the Food Show has done for years, and that is to make people want to go eat at the places they hear about. I wanted to immediately go out to eat at Seafood Sally’s. So we did.
It was a glorious evening for outdoor dining, and we clearly weren’t the only ones to think so. Seafood Sally’s has plenty of outdoor dining space, and all of it was occupied. Except for one little bizarre cafe table with two chairs, along with a heavy metal bench as part of the table seating. This was in a gravelly part of the outdoor space.
When the host informed us this was all they had, I declined, citing the difficulty of Tom sitting there without tripping on these uneven surfaces. The host was absolutely terrific about this, going through the trouble to move the table to another part of the patio. Then he went inside and brought back two dining chairs to set us up. He could easily have shrugged and waited two minutes for another party to come along and happily snap up this weird little dining space.
This place is very hip and happening, but not in an offensive way. The waiters are quite nice and helpful, and the food comes out fast.
Seafood Sally’s is different in every way. Marcus Jacobs told us that he had always loved this house and felt it would make a great neighborhood seafood restaurant. It’s an odd space, with a linear bar completely separated from the dining room, an entranceway from a ramp, an oyster bar as you walk in, and a truly lovely dining space in the rear past the kitchen. In other words, a typical Uptown cottage-turned-restaurant.
But that is where the similarities end. Marcus mentioned that people often tell him his place reminds them of the old West End. My broken heart about losing the food hangout of my youth still wounds, though calling it a hangout is a big stretch. We almost never ate out as a family of nine, but occasionally a big splurge was Fitzgerald’s. I remember it to this day. It was this more than any other thing Marcus said that made me want to sprint over to Seafood Sally’s.
I have no idea what he is talking about. The two places could not be any more different. The vibe at Seafood Sally’s is pure Uptown hip, with mismatched everything, rickety tables in need of paint, and garage sale china. (I have a piece like one of the plates that was given to us many years ago by Jameel at Maple Street Cafe.) And cilantro and lime as flavorings in anything were unheard of back then. It’s an amusing thought.
But the food at Seafood Sally’s is much better than anything I had at Fitzgerald’s, and way more sophisticated.
Marcus mentioned his thicker-than-usual batter, so we had to get fried things. We ordered chargrilled oysters, Firecracker Shrimp, fried catfish, and fried oysters. Everything was accompanied by coleslaw except the Firecracker Shrimp, which came in a basket with fried jalapenos. The accompanying tartar sauce was more like a salad dressing consistency, with no pickle bits apparent. That alone dispels the West End assertion.
The shrimp were indeed thickly battered, and I liked it very much. They had a little kick to them and were presented in a nice basket with equal parts fried jalapeno. I had to rummage through the jalapenos to make sure I got all the shrimp, and I’m glad I did. One more delicious morsel was buried beneath the pile.
Tom blasted through his fried oysters. The oysters here were enormous, plump, and juicy. Some were fork-cuttable. This is way too big for me, but Tom is delighted when he sees this. The batter on these wasn’t nearly as thick as the shrimp batter, or maybe it just manifested this phenomenon differently on the oysters. Marcus mentioned his wild-caught catfish, another big draw for me. I don’t eat farm-raised catfish, and I am always on a quest to find any wild-caught catfish to rival the delicate candylike quality of the sweet little filets served at Zea. This catfish was quite thick, which always puts me off. It had a fine flavor, but I couldn’t get past the largeness of the pieces.
Coleslaw came with everything but the shrimp, and this lowly side was the star for me. I am a creamy coleslaw fan, but this was a vinaigrette dressing with a pronounced lime flavor. I’m sure there was cilantro and some Vietnamese spices in it. I wasn’t sure about this at first, but the healthy aspect of it caused me to keep eating, and I was gaga over this taste by the end. The vegetables are in large pieces and a bit difficult to eat but I loved this coleslaw.
The chargrilled oysters arrived last. They were beautiful to behold, with their signature garlic bread on top. These were plump and very juicy, though there wasn’t much sauce. It was an unusual cheese mixture that melted in a way to sort of seal the oyster in the shell. The Grana Padano pronounced its superior quality flavor, and the chili butter made for a tasty bivalve.
Marcus said he has heard the West End comparison more than once. I couldn’t disagree more. To my sensibilities, Seafood Sally’s is the very antithesis of a mid-20th century traditional New Orleans seafood joint. None of those flavors or breading are anywhere here.
I would call Seafood Sally's a very modern 21st-century eatery with the hipness that the statement entails. It is a fresh spin on our beloved way of eating seafood, and it is very good.
