Emily Brodrick
I decided to call in advance of the night I planned to dine at Upstate Craft Beer and Oyster Bar. I wanted to ask some questions, such as who the head chef was and who supplied their seafood. Learning online wasn’t an option since the restaurant's website is sparsely detailed, and its Instagram page was—until a week ago—postless. I wondered if this was an intentional decision, meant to lend the establishment an air of mysterious charm, or if the owner was a technologically inept boomer.
Calling proved to be fruitless as well. The person on the line informed me they were busy and told me to call after 1:00 p.m. the following day. The person on the line after 1:00 p.m. the following day said he was only the bookkeeper and that they were a busy restaurant that had “already received ten calls today.” (I was starting to get the sense that they were busy. Almost like they were a restaurant or something.)
Luckily, I had also sent an email with my questions after the first call, and Upstate’s owner, Shane Covey, was kind enough to reply within a day.
Covey opened Upstate 13 years ago following a career working in seafood restaurants around New York City. The restaurant works with more seafood suppliers than he could mention, he said, but the menu initially evolved from late-night visits to a fish market in the Bronx. Covey said he would fill up his Jeep with fresh, raw seafood, “drive it back to the restaurant and start preparing the menus on whatever [he had] bought there.” He boasted that nothing was ever frozen and was sourced as locally as possible, though Taylor Shellfish, “a legend in the oyster field,” was where he got most of his West Coast oysters.
When I walk into the East Village restaurant on 1st Ave., I take one of the empty bar seats. Almost instantly, a bartender comes over to let me know it’s happy hour for another 20 minutes–a half dozen select oysters and a draft (all from New York State) is $12 ($18 if you want wine instead). Though Upstate is a beer bar, I don’t drink beer anymore, so I order a glass of the vino verde and two of each other happy hour oysters. Notwithstanding the carbon footprint involved in shipping oysters across the country, I will say I had Olympia oysters
from Oregon the last time I went to Upstate, and they were memorably fresh. Tonight, the happy hour oysters are all from the East Coast.
The Virginias have an oddly shaped shell–odd even for oysters I mean. Oblong and curved. Their meat is succulent and plump.
The Norwalks from Connecticut are big and briny.
The Long Islands from Orient Point are small and sweet. A good
beginner oyster, but I’m no beginner. I find them a bit boring, though I never hear raving reviews of Long Island oysters.
I think for a moment about why I hold a negative stereotype about Long Island oysters. I know it reaches further back than this, but at The Lobster Place in the Chelsea Market, I once overheard an elderly woman and her daughter ordering oysters. She was that type of old person who had become possibly a little senile, possibly a little fed up with being on earth, and loudly critical of everything. When her daughter asked her which kind of oysters she wanted to order, the older woman responded: “I just don’t want any from Long Island. They’re just awful!” Being from there myself, I have the capacity to hold dual realities wherein comments like this are just bullshit Long Island prejudice but probably also have a lot to do with high mercury levels in our waters–meaning, I don’t think they taste awful, but I can acknowledge they may be awful for you.
I’ve Got a Woman by Ray Charles is playing when I finish my oysters and it enhances my noticing of Upstate’s antique-feeling interior. All the wood in the restaurant - and there is a lot of it - is stained very dark, and the long, narrow room that makes up the dining area is dimly lit with small yellow bulbs. Think old Irish pub. I’m the only person at the bar. Everyone else dining is sitting in parties of two and I have a flash of feeling not just by myself, but alone, and wonder if they’re all couples.
Another bartender comes around to muddle my aloneness. (There are two and they rotate throughout the evening.) He is young and charming and shy and all smiles. He’s also a bit awkward, which is perhaps more telling of his youth than his features. In a practiced but earnest manner, he clumsily insists I try some of their specials because I “won't be able to ever have them again.” I order from the regular menu anyway–escargot for my appetizer and squid ink pasta with sea urchin for my entrée.
I’ve only ever had escargot from a restaurant my mom and I used to go to whenever she visited me in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called Waypoint, (which, endearingly, my mom always called “Wayfair” by mistake). When they come out, they’re about three times the size of the ones my mom and I used to get at “Wayfair.” I fish out the first little sucker with a toothpick, smother it in the melted green butter it’s been baked in, and pop it into my mouth. It’s fresh and earthy from the infused butter.
I don’t think I’ve ever had sea urchin before, and my first impression is that it has a gooey texture that would turn off many Westerners. The flavor is sweet and buttery–potentially overwhelming by itself but balanced when eaten with the pasta, which has a Japanese flavor profile. Sea urchin, trout roe, green onion, and something else (seaweed powder, according to the menu) are what give this dish its delightful peculiarity. They combine with the rich, creamy squid ink noodles to create a dish that is far more complex than traditional Western pasta dishes. It’s umami and sweet and salty–a part-ramen, part-pasta hybrid experience.
When I went to Upstate the first time in August I got this mind-blowing, fatty, oily, bone marrow dish that I scooped out of the bone myself and ate as a spread on toast. It was appetizingly greasy and decadent but also activated and experiential. That’s generally how I feel about Upstate: the food is indulgent and interesting, and eating it opens up new ways of experiencing food.
I’ve ordered too much and I have to stop eating before I finish the pasta. I ask for a box and as one of the bartenders packs up my leftovers I give him the old “my eyes are bigger than my stomach.” The waiter says “It’s easy to do in a place like this” and there’s a sincerity in his voice that says he believes he works in a restaurant with great food. He does.
Even so, that same bartender places in front of me two different samples of savory and sweet dishes when he brings out the check, and this happened the last time I came to Upstate, so now I will assume it’s a thing. It’s a gesture that speaks to the overall generosity and welcoming feel of the restaurant. From both experiences I’ve had eating here, the waitstaff has shown they take their work seriously and seem to genuinely enjoy bantering with guests.
Upstate has a genial atmosphere that quickly makes you feel like you’re part of the neighborhood. I’m thankful it’s located in mine.