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Restaurant Mon Feb 12 2007
Fulton’s on the River: Oyster Orgasm… and Disaster
A few weeks ago, a buddy of mine, Mike Sula, wrote an expertly crafted piece that appeared in the Chicago Reader about Mark Mavrantonis, the now legendary “Oyster Whisperer” and Executive Chef at Fulton’s on the River. Sula’s article traced Mavrantonis’ journey through the California juvenile justice system and the American military, to a moment of epiphany when he found his true calling in a half shell. Now, Mavrantonis feels he has an intimate connection with the mind of the sea creature; when the oyster won’t open for him, “He caresses the bottom of its shell and speaks to it softly…(When) he reminds the oyster of its position at the bottom of the food chain, he says, it will relax and accept its fate.”
Sula’s article came out about the same time as an LTHForum.com posting by a mutual friend who goes by the screen name of Pigmon, who wrote that “Fulton’s is a place to be taken seriously by any true raw oyster fan, thanks largely to Mark Mavrantonis and his fanatical approach to procuring and properly serving the best oysters he can get his hands on.” (http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=10988).
Chef Mavrantonis himself has written extensively about the beautiful bivalve, and his philosophical and highly practical musings are contained in his Oyster Manifesto (http://www.chicagoreader.com/oystermanifesto/1/), a beautifully written primer that’s of immense value to both the novice oyster sucker as well as the raw bar aficionado. Mavrantonis knows all his suppliers (a critical characteristic for sourcing the best) and he even tracks their respective sea beds with googleearth.com to make sure water temperatures never rise above specified target levels (and he will never serve or eat an warm water oyster).
I went to Fulton’s twice last week.
The first time I went, Mavrantonis came to our table, shucked a few dozen, all the while providing color commentary on the beasts he revealed with a flick of his wrist. At one point, he pulled out a small syringe and loaded it with a splash of vodka and some mignonette sauce that he proceeded to inject into the abductor muscle of several oysters, lending to them a very subtle undercurrent of additional flavor…though it’s not like they needed any help. These were some of the most transcendently delicious oysters I’d ever eaten; expertly shucked, filled with inebriating liquor, plump and briny, suggesting flavors like melon, raspberry and fresh celery, just fabulous. After finishing a huge brimming tray of these beautiful oysters, I felt like I needed to smoke a cigarette and just rest there for a while.
The second time I went to Fulton’s, the experience was quite different. Given the quality of oysters coming into Fulton’s, it’d be hard to make them bad, but these oysters were not shucked by Mavrantonis. How do I know? Because I ate a few dozen. They were dry, stripped of the succulent solutions in which they dwell. Gary Wiviott, a founder of LTHForum with whom I shared a few dozen on my last trip, concluded that “Service was disorganized and inattentive, martinis slightly watery and the oysters, which if they had been perfection all would have been forgiven, in no way befitted an Oyster Whisperer” (http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=10988). He continued, “While there is no disagreement on my part Fulton's has an incredible oyster selection available, our server had absolutely no idea which oyster was which making it impossible to follow up on favorites. Add to this a second round of oysters that was inexpertly shucked, the adductor muscle was not fully released on a few and more than one had a bit of shell grit in with the oyster, and I am hard pressed to find a reason to revisit.”
He’s right. Though I would not write this place off…not by a long shot.
The service in this cavernous crypt of a restaurant is routinely zombie-like, and the oysters on the second night I went were just… not there. I watched as Wiviott forcibly expelled an oyster he claims he still tasted when we parted ways around midnight, and I definitely detected grit and a certain flaccid and desiccated carelessness in the presentation of these high-quality gifts of the ocean.
My point: if you go to Fulton’s, do not eat an oyster that is not shucked by Mark Mavrantonis. If he’s not there, or not available, simply walk away. Be strong. There is no point hanging in this gaping tomb of a bar/restaurant if not for the oysters, and there’s no point ordering oysters if Mavrantonis isn’t shucking them.
Fulton’s on the River
315 N. LaSalle St.
Chicago, IL 60610
312-822-0100
