Beau Schooler, chef and co-owner of The Rookery Café in Juneau, Alaska, was “pleasantly surprised” when he won the 2015 Great American Seafood Cook-Off, held in mid-August in New Orleans, La. Schooler, together with sous chef Travis Hotch, beat out 11 other competitors from all over the United States with his recipe for nose-to-tail Sockeye salmon.
However, long before he was crowned “The King of American Seafood,” Schooler (pictured, left, with Hotch) has been making his culinary mark in Alaska. The Rookery Café serves local, seasonal seafood and other cuisine – including reindeer – while Schooler also operates the Taqueria, which offers authentic Mexican food. In addition, he runs an artisan food shop, Panhandle Provisions.
SeafoodSource recently caught up with Schooler to talk about the competition and his seafood sourcing practices.
Blank: Describe the dish with which you and Hotch won the Great American Seafood Cook-off.
Schooler: It was a nose-to-tail Sockeye salmon dish, in which we utilized everything from the skin to the bones to the collar. We turned the scrap from the bones and the belly into salmon chorizo. We brined and cedar-roasted the sockeye salmon filet. We dehydrated the bones and ground them up in a coffee grinder. We served a crispy salmon skin chip on top.
Blank: What is the menu like at The Rookery Café? Do you serve a lot of seafood?
Schooler: We constantly change our menu. Are always trying something new and different. We only use Alaskan seafood on the menu, so we use halibut or salmon or whatever is in season. There is no set dish that is more popular than the other. We use every bit of the fish that we can.
Blank: Where do you source your seafood from?
Schooler: We get our sockeye salmon from Taku River Reds (a small, direct-to-market fishing business in Juneau) and we use Alaska Glacier Seafoods (a seafood processor in Juneau) for halibut, cod and other species. We have worked with both of them for quite a while now. Occasionally, we work directly with fishermen. That can be difficult, since they don’t have an idea of how scheduling works for a restaurant. When it does work out, it is great.
Blank: Tell us about the sockeye salmon from Taku River Reds, and how it is different than other Alaskan salmon?
Schooler: We pay a little more for the sockeye salmon – around USD 6.50 (EUR 5.62) a pound currently. They pressure-bleed it, which forces out all the blood. It is more labor-intensive on their end, but the quality is unsurpassed.
