As a native Seattleite, I was skeptical when I heard that New York City restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow was opening Wild Salmon, a “Pacific Northwest Brasserie,” in the steel and glass jungle of Midtown. Chodorow’s restaurants, like China Grille and the troubled Kobe Club, are the epitome of New York glitz and style, a setting for power lunches, closing dinners and over-indulgent expense accounts. On the other hand, the Pacific Northwest, a place where office workers kayak to work in fleece and overt displays of power and wealth are shunned, is about as far away geographically and atmospherically as you can get from Manhattan.
Likewise, Pacific Northwest cuisine also seems to be at odds with Chodorow’s penchant for culinary flamboyance. The emphasis in Seattle markets and kitchens is on simplicity and freshness, neatly prepared dishes. The region’s staples are seafood—like Pacific salmon, halibut and crab—and locally grown produce—like huckleberries, blueberries and the ubiquitous Washington apple. Spices are used sparingly, and the food’s natural flavors speak for themselves.
Despite this apparent disconnect, however, I’m pleased to report that Wild Salmon is a success. The restaurant serves a menu true to the Pacific Northwest in a setting that doesn’t let you forget that you are very much in the heart of the Big Apple. The space itself is grand. From a chic foyer and hotel-like reception desk, a wide staircase sweeps you up to a comfortable second-floor bar and lounge. The principal color scheme consists of warm shades of brown—the floors are beautifully dark and rich—and a school of golden salmon, suspended by wires from the ceiling, arcs gracefully above the heads of patrons in the cavernous main dining room. The only incongruity (albeit an enticing one) is a counter near the front, which is packed with fresh fish, crabs and mammoth geoduck clams—a nod to the fish markets of Seattle and a mouth-watering hint of things to come.
Chef Charles Ramseyer is an alumnus of Ray’s Boathouse in Seattle, a local spot famed for its fresh seafood and views of the harbor. From the windows of Ray’s, patrons can actually watch the fishing fleet return from the Gulf of Alaska with tomorrow night’s dinner. At Wild Salmon, the food tastes just as fresh as it did at Ray’s, but dressed up in new and exciting ways.
For starters, a mesclun salad with Pacific Northwest nuts and berries ($11) is delightful. It’s the type of salad my mother might have prepared with ingredients picked roadside on the way home from swim practice: raspberries, blueberries and blackberries mixed with walnuts and dried apricots. A Dungeness crabmeat and Oregon bay shrimp ravioli ($15) is unexpectedly light with a subtle hint of lemon grass. As for the entrées, the Alaskan sablefish ($29) is rich and smooth with an authentic smokiness and sides of apple wedges and braised savoy cabbage. And the pan-seared Washington coast sand dab ($27)—a bottom fish that the waiter compared to a flounder—was rich and flavorful, with a granular kasha pilaf that serves as a counterpoint to the fish’s creaminess.
The menu at Wild Salmon also includes an impressive raw bar, with oysters, clams and mussels plucked from Washington’s and Oregon’s world-famous shellfish beds (priced from $7 to $18 per half dozen), and a design-it-yourself selection of seafood specialties. Match any fish—like king salmon ($37) or ling cod ($24)—with any sauce, like huckleberry port wine gastrique or spiced Yakima peach raisin chutney, then pick a cooking method. Add a crab leg or two and you have an impressive (albeit pricey) seafood feast.
As the meal ends and you settle in to appreciate the seafood smorgasbord that just came your way, you might think for a moment that you’ve been transported to the coastal northwest itself. But there’s nothing like a froufrou dessert to snap you back to your Manhattan reality. Try the baked Alaskan igloo—a 3-inch tall chocolate truffle penguin flapping its wings at an enormous meringue igloo—so over-the-top outrageous that my dining companion gasped. This, I’m quite certain, is something you’ll never find in Seattle.
Wild Salmon
622 3rd Ave. (at 40th St.)
212-404-1700
