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Greg Dupree / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Christine Keely
In late-1980s New York City, Gotham Bar and Grill was the hottest ticket in town, and if you wanted to get your kitchen bona fides there, you had to be able to stack a seafood salad. We’re not talking about a mound of over-marinated mussels and clams atop a couple of iceberg leaves. Chef Alfred Portale grew up in Buffalo, where he dreamed of becoming a jewelry designer until the kitchens of France came calling. A year and a half after Gotham opened in 1984, the in-demand young chef was brought in to overhaul the lackluster opening menu. He found himself fixating on frutti di mare, the seafood salads in deli cases in Little Italy, and was inspired by the ingredients, if not the execution. He wondered what might happen if he cast a more discerning net with his sourcing, maybe some octopus from his purveyor in Japan, ruby prawns from Maine, some fresh lobster, calamari, scallops — each poached separately, then assembled into something that amounted to more than the sum of its parts.
Portale’s seafood salad became as iconic as Gotham itself during the late ’80s and early ’90s. It also made a splash on the printed page in June of 1993, when the recipe ran in Food & Wine in a feature along-side other distinctive salads of the time. Here’s how the legendarily caustic restaurant critic Seymour Britchky described Portale’s seafood salad in 1991: “Visually prepossessing, it reaches you as a tall cone, partially wrapped in the thin, splayed slices of a ripe avocado, spiky greens sprouting gaily from its apex, glistening of silken olive oil. There are tiny sweet mussels, chunks of juicy Japanese octopus, rich scallops, morsels of lobster, more, all roused by the lemon in their dressing, and by the herbs with which they are mingled.” Seeing as Britchky was the sort of writer who once decreed that the appropriate pairing for another restaurant’s food was Alka-Seltzer, this was like a triumphant bellow from atop the Empire State Building.
A few decades later, Portale, now executive chef and owner of his namesake restaurant Portale, also in New York City, remains amused by the hype. “What I was doing a lot back then was deceptively simple,” he says. “I would take really high-quality ingredients, good execution, but dress the dish up with an elaborate presentation. A lot of that came with stacking the food, and then later it became architectural cuisine.” If a cook trailing in Portale’s kitchen proved a potential fit, he’d put them on the salad station to test them on the dish. “If they could make it, they were pretty much hired for the position,” says Portale.
But once the late New York Magazine critic Gael Greene penned the line, “It’s his gorgeous skyscraper seafood salad that inspires the tall-food craze,” in 2003, Portale was ready to knock it all down. Though the salad was a signature dish for the restaurant and for the chef himself, “the presentation took on too much importance. I started getting calls — I swear it was once a week — from reporters saying, ‘I’m doing an article on tall food. I hear you’re the one who invented it.’ I simply said, ‘No comment.’”
But Portale never turned his back on his foundational dish — nor would the fans who followed the chef to Portale after his 34-year tenure at Gotham. At Portale, the simply titled Frutti di Mare is essentially a less vertical incarnation of the salad, the still-glam star who’s swapped shoulder pads for a luxurious caftan and is loving every languid minute of it. “The elements are prepared differently,” he notes, citing a lemon vinaigrette and a hint of shiso leaf, but “even though it’s relaxed, it’s still nicely plated.” Nicely? C’mon. This iconic dish remains a towering achievement by anyone’s measure. —Kat Kinsman
Ingredients
Vinaigrette
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1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
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1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
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1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
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3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
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1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
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1/8 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper, plus more to taste
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Pinch of cayenne pepper
Salad
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1 (1 1/2-pound) live lobster
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6 ounces medium sea scallops (about 7 scallops)
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6 ounces squid (tubes and small tentacles), tentacles separated
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18 small mussels, scrubbed and debearded
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1 medium shallot, minced
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1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
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1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
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1 tablespoon minced fresh chives, divided
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1 small head frisée, trimmed and separated into whole leaves
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1 small head red oakleaf lettuce, trimmed and separated into whole leaves
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1 medium-size firm-ripe avocado
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Thin lemon peel strips (optional)
Directions
Make the vinaigrette
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Whisk together lemon juice, vinegar, and mustard in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in oil; season with 3/4 teaspoon salt, white pepper, and cayenne. Set vinaigrette aside.
Make the salad
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Fill a large bowl with ice and water; set aside. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high. Add lobster to water headfirst, and cook until lobster is bright red and a meat thermometer inserted in center of tail registers 140°F, about 10 minutes. Transfer lobster to ice bath, and let cool about 10 minutes.
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Meanwhile, fill a separate large pot with 1 inch of water. Place an expandable metal steamer basket in pot, and bring water to a boil over medium-high. Reduce heat to medium to maintain a simmer. Add scallops to steamer basket; cover and cook until white, opaque, and slightly firm, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a large plate. Add squid to steamer basket; cover and cook until tender, 1 minute for tentacles and 3 minutes for tubes. Transfer to plate with scallops. Add mussels to steamer basket; cover and cook until shells open, about 3 minutes. Transfer mussels to a medium bowl, discarding any mussels that have not opened. Refrigerate seafood, uncovered, until thoroughly chilled, about 30 minutes.
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Cut lobster tail lengthwise through the top of shell using kitchen shears. Using your thumbs and fingers, gently spread the shell halves apart, separate the meat from the shell, and discard shell. To remove the meat from the claw, wiggle smaller hinged portion of each claw to separate. Break open claws using a mallet or lobster-cracking tool, cracking one side and then flipping to crack other side, and remove meat. Cut claw and tail meat crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Place claw meat in a large bowl and tail meat in a small bowl.
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Slice scallops horizontally into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Cut squid tubes crosswise into 1/4-inch rings, leaving tentacles whole. Remove mussels from shells, and discard shells. Add scallops, squid, and mussels to lobster claw meat in bowl. Stir in shallot, basil, parsley, 1/2 tablespoon chives, and 1/2 cup vinaigrette. Sprinkle with remaining 3/4 teaspoon salt. Season with additional white pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate scallop mixture and lobster tail meat at least 15 minutes or up to 1 hour.
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Add frisée and oakleaf lettuce to scallop mixture, and toss gently to coat. Mound 1 heaping cup scallop mixture in center of 4 large plates. Peel and quarter avocado; thinly slice each quarter lengthwise. Lightly brush avocado with vinaigrette. Toss lobster tail meat with 2 tablespoons vinaigrette, and arrange 2 to 3 slices on one side of scallop mixture. Arrange one-fourth of avocado slices on opposite side.
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Garnish salads with lemon peel strips, if using, and remaining 1/2 tablespoon chives. Serve remaining vinaigrette on the side.
Suggested pairing
Wine Lemony, precise Sauvignon Blanc: Amici Sonoma County
Notes
As the shallots marinate, their flavor mellows. For brighter shallots, stir into the seafood mixture just before tossing with the greens in step 6.
A steeple of buttery scallops, briny mussels, and sweet lobster made Alfred Portale’s salad at Gotham Bar and Grill an instantaneous hit. Its more modern presentation still relies on understanding the delicate nature of seafood. Cooking each component separately prevents any overcooked pieces and avoids muddled flavors. The results burst with freshness. If chilling the seafood mixture for more than 1 hour while prepping, reserve your shallots until ready to serve to keep them crisp.