Independent claws: The cayenne-dusted softshell crabs are the perfect summer dish. (photograph by michael persico)

Restaurant Review

Quahog’s

by Adam Erace

For me it’s not summer till I tip back some Cape May salts. Tucked inside their small sun-bleached shells, these tiny briny oysters brought back from the precipice of extinction by Slow Food U.S.A. illuminate the ethos of eat-fresh, eat-local. If you’re not a follower of that gospel, do it ’cause Cape May salts are really freaking delicious.

Presented on a bed of ice, these just-shucked babies make a fitting start to dinner at Quahog’s, a Stone Harbor seafood shack celebrating sustainable, local and not-almost-extinct fish.

This isn’t the place for farmed salmon and Chilean sea bass. Instead executive chef/owner Lucas Manteca and his chef de cuisine Carlos Barros prepare Jersey gems like blue crabs, oysters and Great Sound steamers as well as the “trash fish” nobody wants to take to the prom. Whiting, pollock, Brazilian pacu and Atlantic croaker—a buttery weakfish relative roasted whole—are streaked with bright chimichurri and served alongside peppery watercress salad.

Three uncommon fish grace Quahog’s blackboard menu nightly. The first is roasted whole, like the croaker. Another’s filleted and grilled. And one’s Yuengling-battered (“because that’s what the kitchen drink,” laughs Manteca) and fried with Old Bay chips. What’s for dinner depends on what Manteca is getting from local fishermen, roadside shellfish hawkers and purveyors like Brooklyn-based Wild Edibles, a company that grades its catch according to a sustainable star system.

Quahog’s philosophy isn’t airtight when yellowfin or mako sneak onto the menu, though when that happens, Manteca is using bycatch from independent fishermen rather than high-impact fish farms. The Alaskan king crabs are obviously from out of state, and the lobsters—their sweet meat mixed to order with Sriracha, mayo, tarragon and celery leaves for a heavenly lobster roll hugged by a challah bun from Route 9’s Victory Baking—are from Maine.

With concrete floors and exposed wood beams, Quahog’s looks like it could have been airlifted from that New England state, but a cool bit of memorabilia in the men’s room reminds you where you are. Hanging on the wall, a framed faded page outlines the house rules from a circa-1960 summer rental. My favorite: “Where children will sleep, use a rubber or plastic cover on the mattress.” Gotta love the Jersey shore.

Quahog’s dining room and lantern-strung outdoor patio is populated with sun-kissed shoobees, Avalon bluebloods in madras shorts and dishtowel bibs, and sweet old ladies toting bottles of Mondavi and Boneva. Overhead, seagull statues cast watchful wooden eyes upon the monster lobster and clambakes atop the red-checked tablecloths.

Manteca’s very pregnant wife Deanna Ebner—they met while surfing in Costa Rica—strolls the dining room in flip-flops and chats with customers. She asks me how I’m enjoying the cornmeal-and- cayenne-dusted softshell crabs. Does “perfect summer dish” suffice?

The dish is a harmony of peak-of-season seafood and produce. The crabs are meaty and sweet; the strawberry-rhubarb sauce is naturally sugary with an unexpected crack of fresh ginger. There’s an accompanying tuft of arugula festooned with more Jersey strawberries and cherry bell radishes from the farmstands on Route 47.

Contemporary touches nod to the couple’s other Stone Harbor restaurant, Sea Salt. There’s that curious (and awesome) whisper of cinnamon in the light, lovely cherrystone clam chowder made with house-steamed clam juice. Orange-chipotle barbecue sauce lacquers a stack of ribs butchered not from pig or cow but freshwater pacu, a cousin of the piranha.

Missteps do occur, like the tough Middleneck clams in a broth that doesn’t deliver the menu’s promise of fennel and lemongrass. Third-degree burns blacken sections of grilled corn on the cob, while the scallops in the Vitamin C-rich ceviche are sliced too large.

The soft cocoa cakes bookending a Fluff-filled whoopee pie are disappointingly dry, while the otherwise-perfect Granny Smith apple pie just isn’t right without a big scoop of vanilla. Stick to the puddings: dense dulce de leche-drizzled banana bread and Arborio rice infused with cinnamon and orange.

Whatever you can’t finish the able staff will happily box up in a biodegradable clamshell made from sugarcane and corn.

On your way out, past the rusted fishing rods and yellowed maps of Seven Mile Island, the hostess thanks you in a Bulgarian accent and offers a copy of the Blue Ocean Institute’s color-coded pocket guide to ocean-friendly seafood—a thoughtful parting gift from a restaurant with a conscience.