Home Food & Wine The Hungry Palate Scomas lets the seafood shine

Scomas lets the seafood shine

Written by Susan Dyer Reynolds, Northside Editor

Monday, 31 October 2005

Changing with the times, but not too much, is key to success There are a number of things that set Scoma’s apart from other Wharf restaurants and one thing in particular that sets it apart from any restaurant in San Francisco. First and foremost, it’s all about the fish – Scoma’s is the only restaurant in The City with a commercial license to buy seafood right off the boats, eliminating the “jobber,” or middle man. This means that the fishermen keep more of their money, and also that the fish is the freshest available. The reason they are the only restaurant with a commercial license is that Scoma’s has the required facilities – a 600-square foot dock-side receiving station that allows their fleet of boats and wholesalers to off-load the morning’s catch. (There are windows built into the receiving station so that visitors can actually watch them process the seafood just moments before it hits the kitchen). When brothers Al and Joseph Scoma took over a six-table coffee shop for fishermen on the pier in 1965, central Wharf restaurateurs laughed at them – who was going to be able to find a restaurant on Pier 47, down an alley, at the foot of Jones and Jefferson streets? Forty years later, no one is laughing – Scoma’s is the 13th highest grossing restaurant in the United States, according to Restaurants and Institutions’ annual ranking of the top 100 grossing independent restaurants. The success of Scoma’s has much to do with the fact that it has changed to keep up with the times, but has never changed too much. Another key factor is the family’s continued involvement: having dinner at Scoma’s is like having Sunday supper at my grandfather’s house – everyone’s at the table, and happy to be there. Co-founder Joseph’s son, Joey, waits tables. He started at age 15 chopping vegetables all day in a shack off the pier. Al’s youngest daughter, Sancia, is a cocktail waitress, while sous chef Paul Lynn is a cousin twice removed. Al’s son-in-law Tom Creedon, a former San Francisco firefighter married to eldest daughter Cheryl, has managed the day-today operations since 1978 but Al, now 85, serves as chairman of the board and still visits the restaurant several times a week. What sets Scoma’s even further apart from its Wharf neighbors is yet another family member, Steve Scarabosio (his wife is Al Scoma’s grand-niece – confused yet?). Scarabosio has worked at the restaurant 21 years, nearly five as executive chef. The San Francisco native attended St. Ignatius High School and culinary school after that, but his best education has been working at the restaurant and dealing with the fishermen every single day. Scarabosio says that when he started at Scoma’s, “everything was frozen and they served Sara Lee cheesecake for dessert.” These days, Scarabosio serves wild salmon and Dungeness crab just hours from the ocean, local organic heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and Painted Hills natural beef. In many respects, Scarabosio is in a unique position for a chef – he’s been able to develop long-term relationships with his purveyors and he has the buying power to demand the best. On one of our visits, we started with the calamari fritti ($11.95) which was the freshest I’d had in recent memory. Not the frozen rings most diners are accustomed to, but fresh hand-cut tubes of Monterey squid lightly coated in flour and fried golden brown. My dining companion couldn’t resist the local wild king salmon ($27.50) as it was the last day of the season. Broiled medium-rare and served with crisp roasted potatoes on a bed of wilted fresh baby spinach, it is a dish you would find at the hippest downtown restaurant, except the salmon is fresher. Scarabosio tries to use only sustainable seafood and stopped buying farmed salmon five years ago, choosing instead to freeze fresh salmon to serve in the off-season, which I think is a wise move. For pasta, we went with the recommendation of our jovial waiter Kevin (who described himself as the “new kid” with only 12 years at Scoma’s under his belt), pasta diplomatica ($30.95) – petite lobster tails, prawns, clams and sea scallops in a cream sauce over spaghetti. The dish has a slightly old school feel to it with the creamy sauce, but that’s a plus in my book, as is the petrale doré ($26.95), dipped in egg batter, pan-fried and served with garlic lemon sauce, which brings back memories of my childhood. For those who would rather not reminisce with fried fish in a buttery sauce, you can also get the petrale baked and topped with mushrooms or simply grilled. The most popular dish at Scoma’s is the shellfish sauté sec ($34.95) which features much of the same fresh shellfish as the diplomatica but with onions, mushrooms, and a lighter white wine sauce. One of the highlights for me was the California red abalone doré ($68). Tender with a distinctive mild flavor, it made me remember why abalone is worth the price and the fluffy egg batter and garlic-lemon butter sauce is, in my opinion, the best way to enjoy it. Scarabosio gets his abalone from The Abalone Farm, where they mature in the Pacific Ocean waters. It takes five years to grow to the prized steak size, so the markup on this dish is minimal. Even better, Scoma’s offers a half order for $35 which, because abalone is so rich, is more than enough for one to two people and worth every single penny. For Wharf classics, you can’t go wrong with the humongous Dungeness crab Louis salad ($28.95), with properly crisp iceberg lettuce, pickled beets, black olives, tomatoes, pimento and a generous pile of impeccably fresh crab. Topped with creamy homemade Louis dressing, this is great Louis, although I did miss the requisite hard-boiled eggs and avocado slices. Scoma’s also boasts the best classic New England clam chowder ($3.95/$5.75) I’ve found in The City, but I’m not breaking any news here – Newsweek magazine recently named it one of the top four in the United States, alongside Boston’s oldest restaurant, the Union Street Oyster House. It’s made fresh by the hour: you can taste the sea-salty clam juice in the creamy broth, thickened only with the starch of the potatoes, and it’s loaded with fresh, tender, sweet clams with just the right amount of grit. Unlike many Wharf restaurants, Scoma’s offers something for everyone, from old school to new school and everything in between. If you bring visitors who want traditional offerings like a fried seafood platter, they can get a darn good one. It’s one of the few places in The City where you can get my dad’s favorite, lobster thermidor (Scoma’s rendition has chunks of Florida spiny lobster sautéed, tossed with hollandaise sauce, returned to the shell and broiled). But you can also go with a group of city friends and enjoy prime filet mignon, blackened Alaskan halibut or the impressive charbroiled colossal prawns. The wine list has some bargains, like the crisp, fruit-forward Diamond Oaks Carneros 2001 Chardonnay, and the daily prix fixe lunch includes an appetizer, entrée and dessert for just $21.95. Whether you’re looking for a great seafood house for out-of-town visitors or a spot to share a Louis with your best friend, Scoma’s is the place. Scoma's: Pier 47 at Jones and Jefferson streets. (415) 332-9551. Open Sunday through Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday until 11 p.m. Complimentary valet parking. For more information, visit www.scomas.com.

Last Updated ( Saturday, 19 January 2008 )