Inside Popi’s Oysterette, Now Serving Seafood on Chestnut
Popi’s Oysterette, the Marina’s new West Coast-style seafood spot. This restaurant comes care of Joe Hargrave and Mike Barrow of nearby Tacolicious, and the two tapped long-time San Francisco chef Melissa Perfit to run the kitchen and create a sea-centric menu. Perfit has the experience; she was executive chef at Bar Crudo in the early days and also ran the kitchen at the short-lived seafood restaurant Ayala in Union Square.
At Popi’s, which is named after Hargrave’s father, Perfit takes inspiration from San Francisco seafood institutions like Swan Oyster Depot, Hog Island Oyster Co., and Anchor Oyster Bar, adding her modern spin and chef’s touch. These are the things to order.
Popi Platters
Getting a Popi Platter is a correct start to the meal. It comes with an array of fresh sea creatures over ice and will get your palate warmed up for what’s to come.
The platter includes a dozen oysters, which are currently Drake’s Bay Miyagis by default. These ones are medium-sized and extra salty and briny, but if you want to diversify your bivalves a bit, you can request a mix of oysters, for which there are typically several different varieties on hand. All you need a squeeze of lemon or a small spoonful of black pepper-lime mignonette to brighten it up.
The platter also comes with six plump marinated mussels that are doused in a bright, herby green sauce and topped with diced cucumbers for refreshing crunch, plus four freshly shucked clams, four gulf shrimp, and a little ramekin of trout roe, which also makes for a nice oyster topper.
If you want to ball out, splurge on the Big Popi Platter, which comes with two additions: One ounce of shiny briny kaluga caviar from Caviar Co. and a half chilled Dungeness crab.
Grilled Oysters
And because a dozen oysters simply aren’t enough, you’ll also want to throw in a couple grilled big boys in the mix. There are three options to choose from: “The Daphne” contains an herby, smokey compound butter, while “The Shaggy” has a bright fermented pepper sauce with charred scallions on top. But our personal favorite is “The Velma,” which contains seaweed butter and is finished with yuzu and trout roe for both a textural and color contrast that pops. Lots of umami in this one here.
Cured Trout Dip
We’ve all had smoked trout dip before, but Perfit does her own version using cured trout. The origins of the dish turned out to be a “happy mistake,” according to Perfit. She was testing recipes and had cured trout too long; instead of throwing it away, she mixed it with sour cream and mayonnaise and made a dip out of it. It was so good that she decided to put it on the menu.
The trout is cured in salt, sugar, and lots of tarragon that comes through the tip. It’s finished with lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice, and is finished with chives and trout roe to add the oceanic burst. It’s paired with salty Saltine crackers—the perfect vessel for the perfect dip.
Green Cioppino
Cioppino — our great fisherman’s stew — is an iconic San Franciscan dish. But Perfit didn’t want to compete with all the wonderful versions that already exist here. She wanted to do something a little bit different, something that was her own. So instead of red tomatoes, she uses green tomatillos as the base, which lightens the whole thing up a bit. She blends roasted tomatillos together with roasted serrano peppers, onions, and garlic, and a shellfish stock.
She then adds mussels, clams, Monterey bay squid, and either gulf shrimp or a few Dungeness crab legs. It’s served with a garlicky grilled tomato bread that serves as a nice contrast and a good dipper to soak up that bright green sauce.
Crab Roll
Why put a lobster roll on the menu when we have wonderful West Coast Dungeness crab? That was the question Perfit asked herself when writing the menu, and the crab roll at Popi’s has turned out to be the number one seller every week. “People are drawn to rolls,” she says.
Her version is served on a milk bread-like roll from Firebrand. “When I tasted it, I knew it was perfect: buttery, the right size, soft but with a little crust on the outside—it was exactly what I needed,” she says.
She brushes the roll in brown butter, then warms up until heated through, then lines with a layer of little gem greens, and stuffs generously with a mix of cold crab mixed with housemade mayonnaise, and finished with chives. The cool-warm contrast of the crab and bun, the crunch of the lettuce, the sweetness of the crab mixed with the creaminess of the mayo makes for a memorable sandwich. A mound of crispy French fries and a couple pickle spears round it all out.
Omar Mamoon is a San Francisco-based writer & cookie dough professional. Find him on Instagram.
