Summer classics
Chowders from Bay Area chefs that evoke seashore clambakes
Growing up on the north shore of Massachusetts, chef and restaurateur Billy Reynolds spent his summers walking along the shores of Salisbury Beach. When hunger hit — and it always did — Reynolds’ mother would send him to the boardwalk seafood shack, where he would reemerge minutes later with a quart of fried whole belly clams to share with his family.
No one can argue the merits of fried clams, especially when enjoyed with toes in the sand. But had his family hit a chowder house, the debate over which seafood soup is supreme would get hotter than the bowls themselves.
“A proper clam chowder has been a debate for over 150 years,” says Reynolds, co-owner of Billy’s Boston Chowder House in Los Gatos. “Do you use salt pork? What type of potatoes? Milk, broth, cream — or cream and milk?”
Here in the Bay Area, it’s not so much about chowder wars as it is about celebrating the many kinds of chowder we have, from Reynolds’ Manhattan red or bacon-laced corn chowder, a favorite of his childhood, to the spicy West Indian Pepperpot you’ll find alongside traditional topneck clam chowder at the Walnut Creek Yacht Club.
The kicky, red Caribbean soup has been on the menu since the Walnut Creek restaurant’s inception 23 years ago. The dish, which features beer, prawns and trimmings of the day’s fresh catch, is inspired by the chowders chef and co-owner Kevin Weinberg enjoyed while living and working in the Virgin Islands. Ginger and habanero hot sauce provide the heat.
“Ours has cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg — all the flavors you find in jerk spice,” Weinberg says. “In the Caribbean, it’s a very homey, regional dish with a lot of variety.”
You’ll find variety within the New England clam chowder genre, too. In Boston, the base is typically made with milk or cream, thickened with roux. Head south, however, and the broth is clear, with extra flour-y potatoes. Some chefs build their broth using a combination of clam juice, cream and milk, while others stick to whole clams and cream. Spenger’s Fish Grotto, which closed in 2018 after 128 years in Berkeley, allegedly made it both ways.
Weinberg adds his own twist. He starts with hard-shell clams — there’s 8 pounds in every gallon of their chowder — and steams them in white wine. “The wine adds an additional amount of acidity to something that’s creamy and fatty,” he says. “Over the years, it’s just a subtle thing that makes our clam chowder a little different.”
Then, he chops the clam meat and adds it to his roux and clam-wine broth along with fried bacon, potatoes, celery, onion, thyme, cream, salt and pepper. During the COVID-19 lockdown, the downtown Walnut Creek seafood restaurant pivoted to a soup house, modifying its menu to feature only its soups, chowders and cocktails to go.
“Our soup program has always been popular, but we sold hundreds of liters of chowder every week during that time,” Weinberg says.
At Billy’s Boston Chowder House, Reynolds starts with diced, al dente potatoes and a baked butter-and-flour roux. To that he adds his clam broth, with salt pork, celery, onions, garlic, clam juice, celery salt, white pepper and Worcestershire sauce, and, of course, clam meat.
His tips for making clam chowder at home: Start small with roux. Use just a little and have extra on hand for thickening. Slow-cook vegetables on low heat until translucent and super-soft, “so the flavors will meld in the chowder.” And most important: the creamy test.
“At Billy’s, we drop a teaspoon in the chowder vertically and then lift it up to see if it drips fast, but still coats the spoon like a good bechamel,” he says. Then they add broth or roux accordingly. “The right viscosity really punches the chowder flavor through your palate.”
““A proper clam chowder has been a debate for over 150 years. Do you use salt pork? What type of potatoes? Milk, broth, cream — or cream and milk?” — Billy Reynolds, co-owner of Billy’s Boston Chowder House in Los Gatos