Profiles

Jay Shaffer

Jay Shaffer is the chef and owner of Shaffer City Oyster Bar and Grill in New York City. The restaurant has won many accolades during that time and is now recognized as one of the top five seafood restaurants in New York City.

What is your favorite seafood to eat?
Scallops.

What is your favorite seafood to prepare at the restaurant?
Wild striped bass. I like the way it crisps up.

What’s the most popular seafood dish on your menu?
It varies, but at the moment it is red snapper.

How did you get interested in the issue of sustainable seafood?
All my life I’ve been kind of a green individual, going back to my involvement in Greenpeace in the old days, fighting for the dolphins. Then I became a chef and got even more involved in seafood; I became involved in the swordfish situation about six or seven years ago. I think I joined Seafood Choices about five years ago, when I opened up Shaffer City.

Specifically, how important is salmon to you? How much salmon do you serve at the restaurant?
I serve a decent amount of salmon. I serve salmon burgers at lunch, as our pan-seared tartar. I also serve it as an entrée on our evening dinner menu. For the most part, we purchase only wild salmon.

How would you describe your philosophy on ocean conservation?
My philosophy is geared for my children. I want them to have the opportunity to see and taste some of the fish that I ate as a child that has disappeared because of the way we’ve destroyed the environment. For example, I love swordfish but I don’t serve it anymore and haven’t in years. I want my kids to eat swordfish down the road. And I happen to like Patagonian toothfish. It’s a great fish to work with, but again, it’s nearly gone because we’ve overfished it. The objective here is that my kids one day can eat these fish and not be deprived of the flavors and beautiful textures that are out there. They’ll get on board with this same issue and their children, my grandchildren, will hopefully follow too.

How has your philosophy changed what fish you serve?
I don’t serve anything that’s endangered. Whether it’s from the Environmental Defense telling me what is dangerous to do, or Seafood Choices sending me newsletters and giving me insight into what is going on about the environment. I’m always scrambling to find new fish and introducing new species to my customers, whether its opakapaka or some of the Hawaiian fish like opah. And they are available. I’m going to buy them above any other fish out there, because the other ones are being overfished and everybody’s got them on their menus. For example, the most popular fish in the world that’s being eaten in restaurants today is calamari, which is the food of the fish that is out there. That’s what the fish eat for breakfast and we’re eating that for lunch! So we are taking away their food. What are they going to end up eating? You can’t live on plankton.

Have your diners noticed?
My diners all know what goes on. For example, they all know about the “Take a Pass on Chilean Sea Bass” or “Give Swordfish a Break” campaigns. We always try to educate them as to why we have certain things on the menu and why not. They might ask me “What happened to the Chilean sea bass? We loved that fish;” Well, I have to tell them that the fish is gone, they’re not going to see it again until it comes back again. Also, I don’t serve sturgeon anymore and I’m about to stop serving caviar because we have a problem with the sturgeon now. And I sell a lot of caviar.

Do you feel it limits what you can offer?
No. There’s never a limit to what we can offer. How many entrées can you have on your menu? Shaffer City is a white-tablecloth seafood restaurant that serves high-caliber, great-quality food in a cutting-edge kind of way. I can have five, six, or maybe seven seafood entrées on the menu at one time. OK, so I don’t serve swordfish, Chilean sea bass, sturgeon, or farm-raised salmon (mainly because it tastes like nothing). But there is plenty of variety to choose from out there: We serve soft-shell crabs now and lobsters during the height of the summer. We serve oysters because there are oyster beds all over the United States and Canada I can choose from. And there must 15 different species of wild salmon out of Alaska, Colorado, or Montana for me to choose from; I can get sockeye, Arctic char, and Chinook, for instance. I can get anything I want, so why not do it? I’m not limited at all.

Have your seafood purveyors worked with you on getting sustainably caught seafood?
Absolutely. I buy from probably 15 different purveyors on a regular basis. If I look at their sheet and I see Chilean sea bass on it over and over, I tell them to either get on my boat or I will stop buying from them. Although I’m not vindictive, I do make it pretty clear that I’m not happy. They get “punished” and I put them in the “penalty box” for weeks at a time, which is the only way to get back at them: in their pocketbook. If they make a mistake with me, whether they’re giving me sub-quality fish or continuously serving swordfish or Patagonian toothfish, at a time when I’m against this, then get in the “box” for two weeks. I’m also not the only one doing this. If we can get all the chefs to do this, then we can make a difference. You’ve got to get the purveyors involved.

Why do you choose to receive information from Seafood Choices?
So I can get new ideas about what’s going on out there in the world. So I can have some fish for my kids one day. How else I’m I going to get this information? I don’t have enough time to go look for it on the Web. I work 100 hours a week at a difficult job as the chef and the owner and every other position that I carry in this restaurant, it’s very time consuming. Getting information from Seafood Choices is one way I can find out what is going on without having to look too hard.

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