Fish- San Francisco Style

Whether you were dining at the old Neptune Grotto at Fisherman's Wharf, at the adjacent Miramar or High Tide, at Big Ben's on Montgomery Street, at Dominic and Johnny Sutter-Polk Grill, at Popeye's Fish Grotto or at those still extant survivors of a once larger group, Sam's, Tadich's, Mayes' or Chris', the operators made and make no promotional hay of their ancestral beginnings in Croatia, or, more accurately, the Dalmatian coast.

Because of their, call it difference, a significant chapter in San Francisco's culinary history was wound down before most people-even, I suspect, the subjects themselves-know it took place. Only four of the oldtime places remain. Of those, only one, at last report, had an honest-to goodness Dalmatian-born chef working the kitchen.

The chapter has, in any case, left a tasty bequest that lingers on so long as its traditions are observed. That tradition generally has been to serve fish that is almost flopping fresh, and to cook it precisely to that evasive instant which barely divides unappetizing translucency from desiccation. Also, to cook it relatively plainly. What you then taste, be it sole, salmon or sea bass, it is flaky flesh with a delicate flavor. There is never a sauce or herbs so strong they cover up the natural flavor. Just a sprinkling of parsley and perhaps a bit of lemon and butter. Sounds ordinary? You just try to achieve that kind of sensitivity at home, let alone among those houses serving the usual over-fried, over-dried and oversauced fishy fare.

If they failed to call their restaurants Croatian, this was easily explained, since the nation of that name did not come into existence until 1991. Indeed, the restaurateurs seemed to go out their way to take on an American image. Look at the names of some early twentieth century cafes headed by Dalmatians. As noted in the extensive data by local historian Adam S. Eterovich in the archives of the California Historical Society, they include the Rockaway on Market Street, operated by Anton Svijinac, the City Hall Oyster Grotto of Mate Kusanovich, the United States Restaurant, headed by Anton Riboli and Anton Jerkovich, the Bay Oyster House of Nikola Rafaelovich and the Pearl Oyster House of Louis Slavich. There was even a Spreckels fish restaurant, run by George Caratan and Martin Radonich.

While serving up blue plate specials and merchant lunches, the Dalmatians may have failed to realize the extent of their own contribution. When I asked Ernie Aviani, long retired chef and proprietor of the old Neptune (and, following the Ernie's Neptune Fish Grotto in the Sunset District) about it, he became almost contemptuous. "Fish is fish," he snorted during a call to his Sonoma home. "There are no recipes." Even among sophisticated Croatians, there is a lack of awareness of a Dalmatian style in fish cookery. Dave Brooks thinks the Dalmatians simply lacked a feeling for public relations. When his father was still running Mayes', he recalls, "You could have the biggest celebrity in the world walk in and they wouldn't pay attention."

Consistently filled dinning rooms at Tadich's, Sam's, Mayes' and Chris' testify otherwise about Dalmatian fish cookery as it has evolved here. How did people in an area almost unknown for its cuisine develop one? As Sam's co-proprietor Walter Seput Jr. sees it, the Dalmatians were obliged to seek their food from the sea because their soil was unproductive. The catch was so precious, moreover, that people prepared it with utmost care. Care in this context means a caution against overcooking, which deprives fish of texture as well as taste. The traditional methods of cooking the fish were plain ones such as charcoal broiling (gradele) and poaching. With their proximity to the Adriatic Sea, the Dalmatians were able to feast on fish so fresh that there was no reason to disguise it with sauces or seasonings.

Once here, the Dalmatians established their predominance in catching. Eterovich thinks there were more than two hundred fifty Dalmatian fishermen in San Francisco in the 1870s. Records at the California Historical Society, which he compiled, indicate that the Fisherman's Wharf protective Association was headed by Anton Francovich, a Dalmatian, in 1877 and again in 1884; by another Dalmatian, Anton Mengola, in 1881.

The grandfather of twentieth century-style fish cookery in San Francisco was John V. Tadich, a native of Starigrad on the island of Hvar. He arrived here in 1880, about the time the Croatians were fighting Turks on behalf of the Austro-Hungarians in the old country, and eventually came to own the Cold Day Restaurant, later to be known as Tadich's.

Gradually, the Tadich mantle passed to the Buich family, also Dalmatians, whose first members here began as employes in the restaurant and eventually became partners of old John. The present operators are Steve, 41, and Bob Buich, 35, whose father, Louis Buich, arrived in this country in 1922 - last of three brothers to immigrate.

The lineage of Sam's Grill dates back to a place on Market Street called Martin's, founded around 1867. In later years it was located at the California Market on Kearny Street (the Bank of America site). The name came from onetime owner Sam Zenovich, from the Dalmatian coast. In 1937, when the restaurant was located at California and Spring streets, Walter Seput Jr., a Dalmatian who had been managing Camille's French restaurant on Pine Street, took over Sam's. Its present owners are his sons, Walter and Frank, both natives of San Francisco. Mayes' Oyster House, a name once affixed to a restaurant in the California Market as well as that on Polk Street, has been in Croatian hands at least seventy years, according to present owners Ned Boban and Dave Berosh. Boban was born in Dalmatia; Berosh is the son of a Dalmatian.

Chris' Seafood restaurant has been owned and operated by the same family since 1918 when founded by the late Chris (Bozo) Kriletich, a native of the island of Korcula on the same coast of the Adriatic Sea that produced the other restaurateurs and chefs in this account. His widow, Onorina, carries on.

But while the kings of the Dalmatian kitchen of San Francisco have been chefs as well as proprietors, the chefs have all but disappeared. The only Dalmatian left in any of the old fish restaurants is Tony Simoni of Mayes'. Simoni learned his art from Tony Bajurin, a veteran of the old High Tide at Fisherman's Wharf. Bajurin died this year in his 80s. Another longtime chef at Mayes', Louis Jelicich, retired years ago.

Adam S Eterovich

Adams, Gerald. “A Special Way with Fish.” California Living, Feb 1, 1976. About Dalmatian-Croatian restaurants and fish preparation in San Francisco. An excellent article covering pre 1900 Dalmatian establishments.