Seabird Seafood Restaurant Is Open On Bainbridge Island

Chef Brendan McGill was sick of hamburgers. He’d been working Burgerhaus, his pandemic pivot pop-up that centered on burgers, fries, and shakes, at Bainbridge Island’s Hitchcock Restaurant for a yr. For some time, it had been been a enjoyable switch-up from the fine-dining strategy he was used to, however by fall 2021, his coronary heart now not felt in it.

“I didn’t wish to eat that meals lots,” McGill says. “The place felt sort of greasy. There’s no manner round it once you make a zillion fries daily.” He was additionally uninterested in solely serving meals that was good for takeout, and he longed for the occasions when his restaurant was someplace individuals got here to rejoice occasions like anniversaries and birthdays.

Suzi Pratt/Eater Seattle

Suzi Pratt/Eater Seattle

So McGill sat down along with his employees to speak about the way forward for his restaurant. The group landed on turning it into an oyster bar, one thing nearer to the Pacific Northwest fine-dining ethos that evokes him. And as McGill’s frustration with cooking meals for takeout grew, the oyster bar idea grew to become Seabird — maybe his most bold restaurant but, which is removing takeout altogether in a daring break from pandemic-style eating. Chef Grant Rico, who beforehand labored on the three-Michelin-starred restaurant SingleThread in California, is the restaurant’s govt chef, and brings some Japanese strategies, like utilizing kelp for umami, to Seabird. The restaurant opened on June 9 within the former Hitchcock restaurant area. Café Hitchcock, McGill’s informal bar and lunch spot, continues to be serving its salads and flatbreads subsequent door.

Suzi Pratt/Eater Seattle

Seabird, which McGill describes as “unabashedly good” and “anti-takeout,” is a return to the considerate preparation and impeccable sourcing he grew to become identified for at Hitchcock. However it’s additionally a departure in some ways. After 10 years working Hitchcock, he says clients anticipated him to all the time have sure issues on the menu, like roasted chickens, juicy pork chops, huge steaks, and pasta dishes. That made it tough to search out room for brand spanking new dishes and elements.

“I nearly couldn’t change like 20 various things,” McGill says. “By narrowing the main target to fish and greens, we are able to have 10 several types of fish and dive a little bit deeper.”

Seabird’s menu is an ode to the bounty of the Puget Sound. The 45-seat restaurant incorporates a white granite-covered uncooked bar stacked with a number of varieties of native oysters and complete Dungeness crabs. The remainder of the menu primarily consists of small plates meant to be shared, like a “seacuterie” with Columbia river smelt cured within the type of Spanish boquerones, mussels escabeche, and different cured native fish. The inexperienced salad contains greens grown on McGill’s Bainbridge Island farm in addition to native wakame (the kind of seaweed present in miso soup), bonito, and kelp pickles. Even the bread is flavored with seaweed and served alongside sugar kelp butter. Giant plates embrace a complete roasted yelloweye rockfish served with koji barley, asparagus, and pine nut gremolata (herb paste).

Suzi Pratt/Eater Seattle

Suzi Pratt/Eater Seattle

Although seafood dominates the menu, there are vegetable dishes too, like a maitake dish served with koji porridge and mushroom consomme, and potatoes and morels with sea buckthorns and porcini.

The drink menu contains loads of West Coast wines, from Vancouver, B.C., to Baja California, in addition to some choices from Europe. All of them are supposed to pair properly with seafood, so diners shouldn’t anticipate numerous huge daring reds. The cocktail listing, too, options cocktails meant to be paired with the menu, although it’s a full bar, and diners can order most traditional cocktails as properly.

Suzi Pratt/Eater Seattle

Suzi Pratt/Eater Seattle

Just like the menu, the restaurant design is impressed by the ocean and a mixture of Japanese and Pacific Northwest aesthetics. An octopus painted with Japanese calligraphy ink, by Dwight Hwang, hanging prominently within the eating room. A spiny chandelier evokes the form of a sea urchin. And the entrance of the restaurant, which has just a few tables for out of doors eating, is painted a deep-sea blue.

McGill says the menu will develop because the summer time strikes on, and the menu will change seasonally.

Seabird is positioned at 133 Winslow Method East, Bainbridge Island. It is open 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday by Sunday.