At Sirene, fire-roasted seafood is served with a whole lot of sole

Just over a year after the sourdough pizzeria Sister went dark and left a void in Oakland’s dining scene, the wood-fired ovens at 3308 Grand have roared back to life. That’s all thanks to Sirene, a new seafood restaurant by Gavin Schmidt and Paul Einbund of the lauded San Francisco bistro the Morris, which dropped anchor in the historic brick building on Jan. 29. 

As Sister did in its day, Sirene exudes a strain of understated elegance that marries urban grit with rustic, farm-to-table (or in this case, sea-to-table) charm. The dimly-lit dining rooms, accented by exposed brick walls and wood ceiling beams, are about as no-frills and somehow irrevocably romantic as the menu is, which shines the spotlight on local catches and well-selected wines from around the globe. 

For chef Gavin Schmidt, tapping into the ocean’s bounty has always made sense. He grew up on Bainbridge Island, a ferry’s ride from Seattle, where sailing was about as commonplace as driving a car and a giant bowl of steamer clams was his favorite snack. 

“Going crabbing and clamming as a kid, and always being out on boats — it’s something that I grew up very immersed in,” he said. 

Schmidt kicked off his culinary career in high school as a dishwasher. He carried on working in restaurants through college and beyond, eventually making his way into the San Francisco fine dining scene, where he connected with Einbund. 

Schmidt and Einbund met at Coi, a now-closed fine dining restaurant in San Francisco’s North Beach district. They gelled well together, Schmidt said, and after departing Coi around the same time, the two began talks of opening a restaurant together — usually over meals at no-fuss neighborhood spots. 

Gavin Schmidt, chef at Sirene, a new seafood-forward restaurant in Oakland. Credit: Florence Middleton

“We’d both come from tasting menu-only fine dining restaurants. And the more we talked about it, the more we would go out and eat and drink together. We just found that we weren’t gravitating to those kinds of places,” he said. “We were like, yes, we work in fine dining, but that’s not where we want to go when it’s our day off.” 

The idea of pairing high-quality food and drink with a neighborhood feel became the blueprint for Schmidt and Einbund’s joint ventures. Eight years ago, they opened the Morris in San Francisco’s Mission district, quickly earning a reputation as the cozy local bistro serving rustic comfort foods (think charcuterie and perfectly smoked duck), plus an excellent wine program developed by Einbund, an impassioned sommelier and Chartreuse collector, alongside wine director Alec Cummings. 

“We don’t want it to have to be a special occasion. We want the occasion to be: I want to eat and drink really well today and have good, warm, attentive service,” Schmidt said. 

Sirene opened in the former Sister space on Grand Ave. in late January, and has made use of the wood burning oven. Credit: Florence Middleton

The Morris’ standard fare generally circles the meat, veg and wine territory. But Schmidt and Einbund’s attention turned toward seafood while hosting sidewalk parties at the Morris with Stephanie Mutz, a Santa Barbara-based uni diver, which helped “shine the light on all the great things that are on the Pacific coast,” Schmidt said. 

“We started to play around a little bit with more of the obscure, fun catches that we find up and down the coast here — some different kinds of crabs and limpets, abalone and uni that aren’t always as easy to work with or as mainstream. Just finding all the great bounty that’s around here, I wanted to do something that got to play with those great seafood notes.”

At Sirene, evidence of that vision is everywhere, underscored by the menu’s spotlight on local aquatic offerings. 

“I see a lot of seafood restaurants leaning on scallops and Maine lobsters instead of the lobsters we have right here in California,” he said. “Every once in a while we’ll delve out to other places, because there aren’t really good scallops around here all that often. But as much as we can, we’re trying to keep it as local as possible and work with local fisheries.” Take Sirene’s spiny lobsters, for example, which are caught off the California coast and served with a charred béarnaise sauce.

This approach does have a catch: while sourcing land-based meat from farms is generally predictable, the ocean is full of surprises. Accordingly, Schmidt’s menu will change like the tides.

Notes made by customers of previous restaurants in the same location that were tucked into crevices in the brick wall are framed at Sirene, a new seafood-forward restaurant on Grand Avenue in Oakland. Credit: Florence Middleton

“It’s a wild world out there under the ocean,” he said. “So, you know, sometimes you just go out and try to catch one thing, but you end up with something else. The wilds of the ocean give us some flexibility with the menu to just kind of be a little bit more dynamic with what we’re catching out there.”

The sea speaks, and Schmidt listens. That kind of flexibility has always been part of his ethos, exploring what opportunities already exist instead of looking for something he may never find. 

“I just always want to use the best product around, not force a menu and hope that I get good product,” he said. “I start with the ingredient first and then we work with how to showcase it the best, whether that’s what we’re finding in the farmer’s markets or what we’re pulling out of the ocean.”

Logically, the next question would be: what exactly are they pulling out of the ocean? For the latest installment of Nosh’s “Gotta Try It” series, we headed to Sirene to find out. 

Whole Roasted Petrale Sole

Sirene’s heavyweight champion comes in the form of a whole petrale sole, roasted in an oak wood-fired oven at around 600 degrees and garnished with sunchokes, broccolini and persillade, a bright, rich sauce crafted with brown butter, parsley, garlic and lemon. 

“Petrale soles are related to turbot. And turbot is a classic dish that you see roasted whole with wood fire, especially down in places like San Sebastian,” Schmidt said. “Other kinds of sole, like Dover sole, are very much often cooked whole on the bone. So this is my answer to doing that kind of live fire cooking with a local spin.” 

The sole is caught in local waters, brined for a day, then left to dry for another to produce the crispy skin. Before it’s popped in the oven, Schmidt lays the sole on a bed of kombu seaweed — not only to ease the transfer of the fish off the pan, but to provide an umami-rich smokiness that compliments the sole’s mild flavor.

While the fish roasts, Schmidt prepares the accompanying persillade sauce and vegetables.  

“It’s a very classic, mild white fish with an elegant texture to it. Some of the more primal flavors of cooking it whole on the bone in the wood fire give it a certain complexity, smokiness and richness,” Schmidt said. “The sunchokes add earthiness and act as a vessel to soak up some of that sauce and mix in with the juices, and the broccolini gives it some freshness.” 

Clockwise from top left: Chef Gavin Schmidt holds the whole Petrale sole before it goes into the wood oven; melting butter for the dish; the sole goes into the over on a bed of kombu seaweed; adding the final touches to the dish. Credit: Florence Middleton

The sole is presented table-side; patrons can either pick the meat off the bone themselves or request the kitchen divvy it up for them. Schmidt recommends pairing it with a medium to fuller-bodied white wine, like a Mâconnaise chardonnay. 

If you can believe it, the sole isn’t even Sirene’s most Instagrammable offering. Not to be missed is the heaping tower of fried chicken, best described as a “choose your own adventure” dish (it says so right on the menu, given the number of sides and sauces you can elect as accompaniment). The seafood charcuterie is also a standout, which is Schmidt’s seafood-forward spin on his own charcuterie dish served at the Morris.  

“Charcuterie is a very big part of what I enjoy about cooking,” Schmidt said. “And taking that but using it for seafood, instead of your classic pork and beef and duck, is a fun little project to get into.” 

A seafood charcuterie at Sirene in Oakland. Credit: Florence Middleton

Sirene’s charcuterie features duck and lobster mortadella, shrimp chorizo and alpine gravlax, which is cured with salt, sugar and aromatic anise herbs like basil, tarragon and fennel. Green Chartreuse and elixir végétal also go into the mix.

Speaking of Chartreuse — fans of the Morris’ beloved Chartreuse slushy will be glad to know it also makes an appearance on Sirene’s menu. 

“The community has been a great support to us. We have some of our following from our other restaurant, but a lot of new faces that we’re seeing coming in because the neighborhood has been waiting for something new to pop up,” Schmidt said. “I myself live in the neighborhood and I’ve been waiting for something new to pop up. So I decided to build something new.”