Phil Heimer, executive chef at the 52-year-old A&B Lobster House in Key West, Fla., knows a thing or two about preparing and selling winning seafood entrées in a fine-dining restaurant. After working as executive chef at the steak-and-seafood eatery for five years, Heimer won a local "Master Chefs" contest for his seared scallops entrée earlier this year.
Meanwhile, A&B Lobster House's has served as a special-occasion spot for locals and tourists for years, while its downstairs casual eatery sports an oyster bar and fried seafood. Both the casual and fine-dining side specialize in fresh, local seafood, including lobster, stone crab and grouper. But today's challenging economic climate is putting seafood restaurateurs nationwide to the test.
Blank: How are you handling the trend of Americans eating out less, particularly at fine dining?
Heimer: Our fine-dining restaurant has dropped off a bit, but the people who are coming in are spending a lot of money. And business in our casual restaurant, Alonzo's Oyster Bar, has picked up. It has a really good happy hour, with "half price on half of the menu items," and half off of drinks.
Which local seafood items are helping you increase your food sales?
The outlook for the lobster season, which starts in August, and stone crabs, which starts about a month after, is good. When stone crab season starts, a lot of people buy it as appetizers, and the average check goes up a lot. And the price has been going down on stone crab, which doesn't make the fishermen happy [but is good for customers].
Which seafood items are you concerned about sourcing this year?
In January, the grouper ban is going to hurt a lot of fishermen and a lot of restaurants. [The South Atlantic Fishery Council enacted an interim ban on commercial and recreational fishing of 10 grouper and red snapper species, which the National Marine Fisheries Service will vote on this summer.] Grouper is one of the main fish for sandwiches here, and I really want to stay with the native fish. Also, I believe they are implementing it in January through February or March, which is when tourists are here.
What are your top selling seafood dishes?
We sell a lot of 6-ounce "surf and turfs," with 6-ounce filet mignons and 6-ounce lobsters. The dish generates around USD 6 million a year in just that one item. When hogfish is in season, a nice clean fillet with no bloodline, it flies out the door. Other than hogfish, our most popular dish is Grouper Oscar, which is grouper with a crab cake, stacked up high on mashed potatoes.
July 16, 2009
Q&A: Phil Heimer, A&B Lobster House
