San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Fresh is out: Welcome to S.F.’s dry-aged fish era
Chefs agree that age-old technique brings richer flavors and less waste
The freshest catch of the day is no longer the hot item at San Francisco’s seafood restaurants. Local chefs are now dry aging fish, displaying whole snapper and steaks of bluefin tuna in glass-walled refrigerators for days on end as if they were highly marbled porterhouse steaks.
Dry aging is a preservation technique that pulls water from flesh in a dry, temperaturecontrolled environment, breaking down enzymes in proteins for more developed flavor. In adapting the common steakhouse technique to fish, chefs are taking the conventional wisdom that fresher is better and turning it on its head — then hanging it from a hook for up to a few weeks. They say the results speak for themselves on the plate, with better texture, richer flavor as well as longerlasting supply and less waste.
The technique was already trendy in Los Angeles, including at James Beard Award-winning Anajak Thai; two-Michelinstarred seafood restaurant Providence; and dry-age-only sushi spot Fiish. Locally, ambitious newcomers adopting the technique include Kiln in Hayes Valley, offering grilled, dry-aged sea bream; fellow Hayes Valley spot Le Fantastique, serving fish like dry-aged striped jack; and sushi restaurant Friends Only, where fish ages for up to six weeks. Upcoming Italian restaurant Barberio Osteria plans to serve grilled whole dry-aged fish, while three-Michelinstarred pescatarian restaurant Atelier Crenn has already served dry-aged black cod.
At sultry new San Francisco restaurant Aphotic, which mimics the dark, undersea layer of its name, the dry agers are by the door, allowing visitors to take a look at a few of the items in the 10-course, $135 tasting menu before the fish reaches the kitchen. Chef Peter Hemsley believes dry aging is the next evolutionary step among seafood restaurants on the abundant Pacific coast.
“The fish, on the palate, is completely different,” he said of the process. Soft, flaky petrale sole, a common West Coast fish, goes from an unremarkable texture to slightly chewy after a few days of dry aging, Hemsley said.
At traditional seafood restaurants, fish are kept in the walkin for a few days at most, then tossed out. But dry aging extends the shelf life of a fish while improving taste and texture, keeping them out of the rubbish at Hemsley’s restaurant, which doesn’t let anything go to waste. Rock cod that was purchased a week ago can be used to make a crudo, for example, and bones are used to make fish sauce.
There are slight but essential differences between dry aging fish and beef, with which the process is most associated. Michael Buhagiar, the chef at classic San Francisco steakhouse Harris’, said the ideal temperature for dry aging beef is around 35 to 37 degrees. Temperatures for fish are generally lower, just above freezing for fatty fish, though tropical or West Coast fish might be just a bit warmer. Most prime cuts of beef are aged for three to six weeks, and yearold steaks are not unheard of, with a certain amount of funkiness embraced. With seafood, funk is out. Most dry-aged fish get the treatment for three to four days, up to a week at most — though some chefs are extending the process over weeks in special circumstances.
Ray Lee, the sushi chef behind the splashy new location of Akikos and its sister restaurant Friends Only, said he’s been experimenting for almost 10 years with different aging methods, trying to find when to serve fish at the peak of its flavor.
“Fresh fish doesn’t necessarily taste good. It’s tasteless,” Lee said.
He began by rigging a wine refrigerator in which to hang fish. Today he uses a special dry-ager cabinet that allows him to carefully control temperature, humidity and airflow. The settings, said Lee, help re-create a fish’s native conditions to better preserve the meat: Rich, coldwater fish like deep sea perch or golden-eye snapper go into the dry ager at one degree above freezing to lock in fat that allows the fish to survive in frigid waters.
After about seven days in the dry ager, these fish are quickly grilled or seared to awaken their oils, developing texture on par with prized fatty tuna. “It just melts in your mouth like butter,” Lee said, a richness he contrasts with acid like yuzu and lime.
Loins of bluefin tuna are an exception to most aging rules. Lee and Hemsley let the luxurious cut linger for up to six weeks at their respective restaurants. Diners mistake them for rib eye steaks. The long process takes the tuna from a mild, fatty flavor and soft texture to a developed, rich mouthfeel and flavor Hemsley described as having “earthy, umami notes.” Lee described various flavors of ripe banana, melon and caramel.
Dry-aging gear can be just as extravagant as the most choice tuna. Some restaurants are willing to spend $15,000 on top-of-the-line equipment with temperature controls to onetenth of a degree and ultraviolet light to stave off bacterial growth. A U.S. sales representative for German company Dryager, which manufactures cabinets for dry-aging meat, noted the increase in interest among restaurants in processing fish in their cabinets.
Despite the boom, dry aging is not simply a modern hightech creation; cultures around the world have used a combination of dry environments and air flow to preserve meat for centuries, in addition to smoking and salting.
At Kiln, chef John Wesley is rolling with a more old-school approach: He makes space under his walk-in refrigerator’s fans, pushed to the highest speed setting, to hang fish for maximum airflow, and places salt blocks nearby to reduce moisture.
Chef Nick Kelly, of Nob Hill Italian restaurant AltoVino, is also opting for the walk-in instead of special cabinets at his upcoming Italian restaurant Barberio Osteria, which opens this summer in the Mission District. As part of the process, he and his staff scale and gut the fish, constantly patting it down with towels and making sure there is no contact with water.
“Once the fish touches fresh water, it actually starts deteriorating so much faster,” Kelly noted.
Kelly first learned about dry aging fish from Australian chef Josh Niland’s influential 2019 book “The Whole Fish Cookbook,” which emphasizes preservation and eliminating waste. In a statement made through his publisher, Niland praised the dry-aging technique for its ability to enhance flavors and textures, explaining that he largely developed it through trial and error.
Kelly admits he was a bit worried about rotten smells or flavors from the process when he first tried dry aging. But with a shorter process, he’s happy with the result. Natural flavors are concentrated, filets are softer and skin is crispier, whether a fish is cooked on the pan, baked or grilled. (Wesley at Kiln said any undesirable taste or smell is a byproduct of fish or handling that’s not quite up to standard.)
Dry aging also lines up with his Italian cooking practices, said Kelly; it’s a process that produces some salumi and the flavor and texture of steak Florentine (which he offers at AltoVino and plans to offer at Barberio). “It’s a method that is so old that now that it’s returning, it feels new,” Kelly said.