A plate of grilled sturgeon at Sea Salt restaurant.By Stett Holbrook
Photographs by Judi Swinks


For the seafood lover with a conscience, these are difficult times. The world’s oceans are being drained of once-thriving fish populations, and the consumption of recklessly harvested seafood is shrinking fish stocks as well.

That’s why the opening of Berkeley’s Sea Salt restaurant is so welcome. The restaurant serves nothing but sustainably harvested fish, seafood that comes from healthy, wellmanaged fisheries. But Sea Salt is more than an environmentally correct, eat-it-because-it’s-the-right-thing-to-do restaurant. None of that would matter if the food weren’t any good. And it’s very good indeed.

Sea Salt opened in June on a boutiquey stretch of San Pablo Avenue. The restaurant is part of Cindy and Haig Krikorian’s growing East Bay empire, which includes Lalime’s, Fonda Solana, Jimmy Bean’s and T-Rex. In addition to chef Anthony Paone’s top-notch food, Sea Salt’s good looks and casual-yet-urbane style have made it a neighborhood favorite and a Bay Area destination for seafood aficionados.

Sea Salt’s mid-market, neighborhoodfriendly offerings are something of a rarity. The most expensive entrees are $20, not cheap, but reasonable for seafood of this caliber. Service, for the most part, is friendly and knowledgeable.

As you’d expect with a seafood-based menu, it changes often, based on what’s available. You’ve had New England clam chowder a hundred times before, but here the soup ($8.50) stands out for its fine, multilayered flavors of cream, clams, celery and potatoes. The sprinkling of bacon and parsley on top rounds out things perfectly.

I loved the persimmon salad ($9), a bitter, sweet-and-sour combination of frisee, roccola (an Italian green), walnuts, pomegranate seeds and creamy-sweet fuyu persimmons.

Too often what passes as crab cakes are really doughy patties with a high breadcrumb-to-crabmeat ratio. That’s not the case here: Two plump, pan-fried Dungeness cakes ($15) showcase the sweet meat with a deeply flavored cioppino sauce and rouille (creamy garlic sauce) on the side.

One of the tenants of healthful, sustainable seafood is to eat creatures low on the food chain: There’s generally more of them, and they reproduce quickly. Sea Salt offers two shining examples of eating smart and eating well. One bite of the grilled squid ($11) should make you run from another plate of rubbery fried calamari. Here, the fat specimens are appealingly charred and come off the grill as tender as bacon fat. They’re rich and smoky and great with the almond pesto served alongside. Grilled sardines ($12) are another winner. This trio of headless sardines is grilled whole, but pulling the fillets off the bone is as easy as unzipping a zipper. The fish is meaty and full flavored, yet not at all fishy. The salsa verde on the side is a classic accompaniment.

Sea Salt serves several sandwiches, and the bacon, lettuce and trout ($12.50) is the best seller. It’s easy to see why. Served on an excellent, scaled-down torpedo roll, the sandwich is layered with oven-dried tomatoes, arugula, pan-fried trout, bacon and a smear of tartar sauce.

Grilled Columbia River sturgeon ($20) was one of our favorites. For a big, prehistoric-looking creature, the fish is surprisingly sweet and mild. The kitchen treated it right; inside it was juicy and moist, while the outside was perfectly charred. The broccoli raab, baby turnips and caponata served with it were just as good. Pan-seared grouper ($20) was another keeper. The golden-crusted fish tasted as sweet and buttery as lobster, and the roasted squash, fregola (a small pasta), hazelnuts and browned butter that accompanied it offered the comfort of a fireplace on a cold night.

Sea Salt’s wine list is a mix of mainly European offerings with a handful of California wines thrown in. And forget that business about having to have white wine with fish. There are a number of excellent red wines available. My favorite for seafood is sparkling wine, and the Ruggeri Prosecco ($7.50 glass, $29 bottle) mingled well with a variety of dishes.

Desserts ($7) are mixed. Pumpkin and date bread pudding lacked much flavor of either ingredient. The huge chocolate almond torte was good as was the lemon and ginger root-studded frozen yogurt. After two visits, I’m hooked. Eating the right thing never tasted so good.

The Details
Sea Salt . Seafood.
Open daily 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.
2512 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley
(510) 883-1720. CC $$-$$$