Comments (2) Best Seafood Restaurant - 2009
Reef
Bryan Caswell was named one of the 10 Best New Chefs in the country by Food & Wine Magazine this year. He owes much of that honor to the bounty of the Gulf of Mexico. Caswell is a fisherman, and he understands the treasures of the Gulf in a way that non-fishermen never quite get. His nickname on Twitter is "Wholefish," and that's also the name of his seafood encyclopedia of a blog. The name describes his culinary philosophy in one word — Caswell doesn't buy filets or fish steaks or anything that someone else has cut up; he buys whole fish. That's the only way to know exactly what you're getting, he says. At Reef, the menu takes advantage of what's available. Sure, there's shrimp, crab, oysters and red snapper. But there's also wahoo, tripletail, amberjack and sheepshead. These are fish that no one else in town is cooking, and at Reef, they are all presented in unexpectedly brilliant dishes.
