With Zig Zag Oyster Bar, the Cervo’s Team Brings Their Seafood Magic to Brooklyn

1. This team takes its seafood tower very seriously.

At Cervo’s, only the uninitiated would skip the Louisiana white prawns on the plancha. At Hart’s, the clam toast with pancetta never leaves the menu. At Zig Zag, the seafood towers are primed to become a hallmark of the restaurant. The splurge-worthy deluxe seafood tower is stacked with East Coast oysters, Bangs Island mussels marinated in salsa verde, steamed little neck clams that are lightly pickled, lobster salad, and a whole lot more. There’s also a smaller, more classic tower.

Shrimp comes two ways at Zig Zag: the shrimp cocktail’s paired with a ketchup-free cocktail sauce made with Italian tomato paste and Calabrian chile. Meanwhile, be prepared to get a bit messy with the half pound portion of peel-and-eat shrimp, which are cooked in a beer-based broth and tossed in a spice mix.

The team’s sustainable tinned seafood brand, Minnow, also makes an appearance in the decadent white fish salad — a mix of poached hake, aioli, and garlic, with Minnow smoked trout folded in. It’s served on toast with sungolds for now, but will change with the seasons. A couple of team members described it to Graham as “the perfect girl dinner.”

2. Don’t expect fries or grilled seafood.

This team is accustomed to making the most of small kitchens. The one at Hart’s is just 35 square feet, but Zig Zag’s kitchen has a limitation that’s particularly challenging for a restaurant: There’s no hood, which means no stove, grill, plancha, or fryer. Instead, it will operate with one oven, two induction burners, a toaster oven, and a menu that is designed to accommodate that.

Chickens here are served at room temperature. They’re roasted at high heat during the day with black pepper, rosemary, and a touch of brown sugar. For dinner, they’re accompanied by pickles from The Pickle Guys, housemade mayo, and a vinegary, spicy, and smoky hot sauce.

“We can’t have French fries — and a hot potato feels important to me,” Graham says. The ones at Zig Zag are Yukon golds that are boiled and held in a garlicky, winey broth, then topped with fresh horseradish.

A hallmark of the group’s restaurants are their bright and punchy salads. “I think a salad is a really good barometer for judging the food of a restaurant, because it is really easy, but it’s also really challenging,” Graham adds. There are two at Zig Zag: a big green salad with whatever greens are in season, and a lentil number with puy lentils from Rancho Gordo.

Given the limited kitchen, the team originally planned to serve a single dessert, but loved how the lemon torte paired so well with the housemade olive oil ice cream with Fernet that they kept both on the menu. “You should eat them together, but they both stand on their own,” Graham asserts.

3. The atmosphere at Zig Zag will shift between summer and winter.

This group keeps things in the family. Each of their restaurants, including Zig Zag, were designed by Perkin’s brother, Russell Perkins. At Zig Zag, the expansive outdoor space is made to feel like coastal France with lots of small round tables tucked under large awnings. With it, the restaurant’s capacity nearly doubles from 50 to 90, which the team knows will present a challenge: “We will have to figure out how to operate your favorite cozy oyster bar in the winter, and, hopefully, a sun-splattered corner cafe in the summer,” Perkins says.

The size of the restaurant is similar to Cervo’s, but it’s wider and set up to accommodate more parties of four or more. “A lot of two tops can be pushed together — flexibility is really the key,” Perkins adds. Seats at the horseshoe-shaped bar, meanwhile, get a prime view of the oyster shucking station.

4. The wine list pulls from France’s coastline and several islands.

The petite wine list has a “playful bistro vibe,” says Taylor Ward, who is the director of operations and a partner at Zig Zag. It’s “very seafood friendly [with] a lot of coastal regions and a French emphasis.” It also sports bottles from Sardinia, Sicily, and the Canary Islands.

There are familiar powerhouses like Clos Cibonne from Provence and Ameztoi from the Basque region, along with more unusual finds like Domaine Ardoisieres’s silice. Produced in landlocked Savoy, it has a brightness and high-toned elegance, Ward says. It’s imported by Martine’s Wines, where co-owner Nialls Fallon’s wife works. The bottle has “always been a favorite that has not gotten enough play in our restaurants before,” Ward says.

5. Order a dinnertime Bloody Mary or an old-school martini with orange bitters.

“I love having Bloody Marys at night, and I think there should be more of that,” says Fallon. Since it’s served with dinner here, the team thins out their housemade Bloody Mary mix so it’s lighter, and sticks to just an olive for the garnish, so the drink doesn’t overwhelm the meal.

The Original Martini on the menu references a time when bitters were standard in martinis. The orange bitters used at Zig Zag add a citrus note that suits the raw bar offerings.

“I really wanted to just have classic cocktails that people are familiar with and love, and go particularly well with seafood,” Fallon adds. There’s a cosmopolitan, Pegu Club, vesper, and similar to their other restaurants: a margarita.

Zig Zag Oyster Bar is open Tuesday to Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m. Sunday and Monday service will launch later this year.

Devra Ferst is a Brooklyn-based food and travel writer who has contributed to The New York Times, Bon Appétit, Eater, NPR, and numerous other publications. She is co-author of “The Jewish Holiday Table: A World of Recipes, Traditions & Stories to Celebrate All Year Long.” Follow her on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.