In September 2021, I wrote here about the pandemic evolution of Michelin-starred Lord Stanley into Turntable at Lord Stanley, an exciting residency for chefs from around the globe and the U.S. to showcase their beloved menus, concepts they’re working on or other collaborations with the tight and consummate Lord Stanley team.
Returning this August 2022, I experienced chef Melissa M. Martin’s cooking from New Orleans’ lauded Mosquito Supper Club. New Orleans is my other most beloved U.S. besides my own… one I have deeply studied, written about and visited annually for 15 years. Hundreds of restaurants, bars and thousands of dishes later, I have done deep dives into Cajun and Creole cuisines and New Orleans culture, music and history.
Martin grew up on the Louisiana coast, has lived in New Orleans for 20 years and evacuated to Northern California during Hurricane Katrina, so has some local ties working in Napa Valley vineyards and restaurants. There, she upped her self-taught culinary skills until three years later, she went back home to Nola, opening Satsuma Café, and in 2014, Mosquito Supper Club (MSC), which books up months in advance.
It is a treat to have her here in SF through the end of August (the 26th, so book fast! $130 tasting menu, $75 petit menu) for what has been a rich, month-long residency, with Martin bringing in a range of Louisiana ingredients, from crawfish to Louisiana blue crab. Her highly lauded cookbook has been a crucial one for me since it came out in 2020. It is not only one of the great Cajun cookbooks of all time, it is a true ode to coastal Louisiana, Louisiana waterways, sustainability, historic Cajun dishes and seafood. It was an important book in taking my understanding even deeper of Cajun foods and history, even as I have also done study in Prince Edward Island’s Acadian foods and music, where I see the direct correlation to Cajun food and Louisiana zydeco, evolving as Acadians immigrated from Canada to Louisiana.
As with every menu at Turntable at Lord Stanley, a walk-up window and delivery via Caviar/Doordash offers a couple casual offerings from chefs-in-residence if you can’t make the tasting menu (better yet, do both!) This casual offering is some of Martin’s best: Maxine’s shrimp and okra gumbo over Carolina gold rice. Even with all my study in Nola over the years and dozens of gumbo styles tasted, I have not tasted a coastal Louisiana-style gumbo like this. With no roux, it tastes of the sea and Gulf shrimp, lighter yet still nurturing.
As much as I appreciate the fried soft shell crawfish on a roll (in pepper aioli with fried jalapeños), a supplement on the tasting menu, I love the fried oyster po-boy more on the takeout window/delivery menu. Plump cornmeal-fried oysters are juicy goodness, while Louisiana remoulade (which I always say improved upon the French sauce with the addition of mustard), shredded lettuce and pickles send it over the top.
Starters are a highlight on the MSC menu, including spot-on rounds of fried eggplant, tasting like Thanksgiving in honey, rosemary and sea salt, and Martin’s “ode to napa” of cold-poached shrimp and watermelon salad. I love the ease of eating little Louisiana blue crab claws, which I ate plenty of in New Orleans this July. I continued the joy here, seasoned beautifully in drawn butter.
Family recipes and influence abound on Martin’s menus and Velma Marie’s oyster soup may be my favorite. Her grandmother’s oyster soup recipe is loaded with Acadian salt pork, briny oysters, pasta shells, sweet tomatoes and a ridiculously welcome amount of onions, cooked down and sweet. It shares the spirit of bouillabaisse or San Francisco’s own Italian immigrant creation, cioppino. But the salt pork and Gulf oysters are oh-so-Louisiana. The broth wows, sheer familial comfort in a bowl, sopped up with Lord Stanley’s also comforting sourdough bread.
Per usual, Lord Stanley’s wine pairings are on-point, whether a rustic, balanced 2021 D. Marioni Chardonnay from Sonoma Mountain with the crawfish, or complex yet refreshing 2019 Cantina Giardino skin contact Fiano from Campania, Italy, with Aunt Chrissy’s crab cakes. Their low proof cocktails are another highlight and ideal way to start a meal.
September brings a residency with Palestinian-Jordanian chef Moeen Abuzaid, who owns a spice shop in the country of Jordan, paying homage to Arabic cuisine with his traveling pop-up, The Broken English, which he’ll be bringing to SF August 30th — October 1. Lord Stanley’s Turntable remains a special, unique source to experience global chefs and cuisines in often niche and hyper-regional cuisines.
// 2065 Polk Street, www.lordstanleysf.com
