At Saint Julivert, NYC’s Upscale Seafood Scene Gets a Much-Needed Jolt

Before you scoff at the price of a gooseneck barnacle — the worm-shaped creature can fetch $100 per pound — understand that there is no such thing as a farm-raised species. The crustacean thrives on wave-battered rocks and cliffs. Those who collect them, on the Iberian or Pacific Coasts, are equal parts fishers, foragers, and climbers. Their toolsets include wetsuits, harnesses, clamps, and when necessary, ropes for rappelling. To harvest a barnacle means to risk death. But to consume one, a possibility at the spectacular Saint Julivert Fisherie in Brooklyn, means to sample one of the world’s great delicacies.

Alex Raij and Eder Montero are among a handful of New York chefs to serve the percebe, as it’s known in Spanish. The stubby, ugly creatures serve as a stark visual contrast to the crab-stuffed avocados and other attractive small plates in which Saint Julivert specializes. The calcified head of a gooseneck evokes a malformed clam, while the brown thorax recalls a petrified lizard phallus. They are boiled in salt water and served as is. No sauce, no lemon. A waiter advises twisting off the leathery body, revealing a single longitudinal muscle. Sometimes that muscle is pink. Sometimes it’s tan or black. In neither case does it appear edible or delicious.

Gary He

Rest assured, it is both. The texture mimics that of a razor clam. And the flavor might suggest a Nantucket Bay scallop in its sweet wintry prime. Or it might, depending on the barnacle, convey its sugars in a more restrained fashion, like those of a Maine lobster. Still others recall the briny wallop of a crashing wave pulling you under. Each bite is unique. What is inevitable, however, is that three minutes into eating, your hands will turn sticky with shellfish juice.

Such a pristine expression of the sea doesn’t come cheap; Saint Julivert asks $30 for about 20 thumb-sized goosenecks. But if a dozen oysters can run $50 elsewhere, or if a tin of caviar can command $100 anywhere in the city, it’s hard not to think of this rare barnacle for what it truly is: a value. And with this dish, it’s hard not to think of Saint Julivert, a single room of a restaurant on a quiet Cobble Hill street, as one of the city’s best places to eat fish.

New York has many new seafood spots; few of them are accessible or interesting. Contemporary operators have largely used the oceans of planet Earth, the source of so much biodiversity and (occasionally) sustainable bounty, to fuel a spate of blandly expensive restaurants. These venues primarily exist within a tight band of European or Japanese traditions; one thinks of the burgeoning sushi spots built for an army of finance and tech workers. Or consider the (admittedly more global) Pool with its $200-per-person dinner tabs. Or how about the new Milos opening in Hudson Yards? The website for that Greek palace offers Mediterranean yacht rentals.

A touch of skepticism about Saint Julivert, in other words, is hard to avoid. And at first glance, nothing about the restaurant suggests it’s a boundary-pushing establishment. It sits amid a row of $5 million brownstones. Inside, patrons in cable-knit sweaters and flannel vests sip at beet-juice cocktails. The whole tableau feels very J.Crew, very suburban upper middle class, very basic.

A perusal of the menu, however, reveals that any skepticism is misplaced. Saint Julivert succeeds more than any other venue in channeling the world’s oceans into a distinctly New York expression of maritime internationalism. The chile-flecked bill of fare boasts influences from Peru, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Portugal, Mexico, and China. Almost every dish is under $20.

And just about every trope of modern oceanic eating is absent. Gone is the four-bite, $30 plate of deep-sea snapper sashimi. Banished is the altitudinous shellfish tower, gleaming with chipped ice and chilled clams. And there is most certainly no caviar service.

There aren’t even oysters on the half shell. Instead, the kitchen fries the bivalves tempura style and stuffs them inside a beef tenderloin sandwich — a meaty, mineral surf-and-turf po’ boy. The chefs also place oysters, plumped under the broiler, atop layers of pig ear and kombu doused in crimson chile oil. The net effect is a kaleidoscopic terrine of swine and sea, with all squishy, umami-rich proteins yielding to a lingering pepper burn.

Few other ambitious seafood spots — the thrilling Le Sia notwithstanding — deploy the pain and tingle of heat with such confidence. Tiny dried prawns, and a squeeze of lime, add a bit of funky zip to ramekin of spicy roasted peanuts. And posole warms the palate with arbol and guajillo chiles; barely cooked-through shrimp sit on top of the hominy soup, offering relief in the form of creamy sweetness.

Raij and Montero, for the most part, have never really operated by the standard restaurant-empire playbook. They rose to fame at El Quinto Pino, hawking sea-urchin sandwiches with Korean mustard oil; at Txikito, selling some of the city’s most exhilarating renditions of Basque fare; and at La Vara, which uses food to tell the story of Spain’s historic Sephardic and Moorish traditions.

Then, next door to La Vara, they opened up an all-day cafe called Tekoa that didn’t exactly bring in the crowds. It closed this year and became Saint Julivert in September, and it’s been packed ever since.

Anyone who’s ever waited two hours for walk-in seats at La Vara can take comfort in the fact that things move quicker here, with a long steel bar and a chef’s counter reserved for those without advance bookings. Backless stools cut down on lingering.

Servers recommend six dishes for two tops or nine for parties of three. Take their advice; most of the cold plates are modestly portioned.

Scallop tacos — three for $13 — are one- or two-bite affairs. Raij and Montero slick the shellfish with salsa macha, garnish it with pickled red onion, and lay it atop a shiso leaf. The resulting wrap expresses the component flavors and textures — acid, anise, grassy crispness, marshmallow softness, and complex nuttiness — with laser-like precision. Fluke ceviche also gets the job done, letting the neutral flatfish act as a conduit for a wallop of lime, onion, and cilantro. And mussels en conserva juxtapose the concentrated punch of bivalve brine against the tang of pickled carrots and the perfume of fresh mint.

Really, order anything except for the turmeric-laced tuna bake, a mess of musky fish and bland tomato sauce. Skate is the staple safe order, a well-executed slab of sherry-sauced wing.

The true gem of the hot dishes is the jerk kanpachi collar, a bony, fatty, pick-apart-with-your-hands side of yellowtail. Raij and Montero blacken the exterior with a copious blend of thyme, chiles, and allspice, dampening the fish’s rampant oils with nuclear-powered aromas. It might not pack the intoxicating hardwood smoke of proper jerk, but the Jamaican spices come through unabated. Consider pairing the collar with sorullitos, Puerto Rican corn fritters shaped like cigars; they function as a silky, starchy antidote to the heady fish.

Desserts don’t necessarily wow at the same level; skip a stiff panna cotta in favor of Cuban bread pudding with mezcal ice cream — a deconstructed riff of sorts on baba au rhum. But a near-perfect meal at Saint Julivert doesn’t require refined sugars. The savory fare already does enough to sate, to inspire, to disrupt high-end seafood’s spendy stranglehold on the city.