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5 Courses with Joe Brenner of South End Buttery

5 Courses with Dante de Magistris of Il Casale

5 Courses with Dan Estridge

5 Courses with The Meat­er Maids: Jericha Strickland and Victoria Ke of The Butcher Shop

5 Courses with Marco Suarez, Executive Chef at Bon Savor

5 Courses with Donald Wiest, Esq., president and chairman of the board of the Boston Public Market Association

5 Courses with Netta Davis

5 courses with: Geoffrey Fallon, Beverage Director at banQ

5 courses with: Lynne Viera; president of Rival Marketing

5 Courses with Marie-Claude Mendy, owner of Teranga

5 Courses with Peter and Robert DePesa

5 Courses with Charlie Radoslovich

5 Courses with Jason Irving, Wine Director at The Four Seasons

People are afraid of wine — of looking stupid while ordering, spending too little or too much, not knowing when to send back a bad bottle. Jason Irving, wine director at the Four Seasons, thinks our fears are unfounded.

5 Courses with Jim Walsh

Jim Walsh is pretty fast with an oyster. Maybe not as fast as Wellfleet’s William “Chopper” Young, reputedly the world’s fastest oyster shucker and the 2009 winner of the International Oyster Opening Championship held in Galway, Ireland. But Walsh is fast enough. He should be. As a shucker/bartender at the East Coast Grill, he shucks close to 400 oysters a night. On a big night, it’s over 500. We wanted to know what the big deal is about shucking oysters.

Is it hard to shuck an oyster? You can really screw it up. People think it’s about pressure. But it isn’t. It’s all about leverage. You have to know just where and how to press, or you end up with an oyster that cracks or just won’t open unless you wham it on the counter. I open my oysters “New England style,” not competition style. New England style means going in through the hinge. The other style is going in through the side — it’s faster to pop it open that way, but the presentation isn’t as pretty. So when we do it here, we go in through the hinge, wiggle the knife, and open the oyster very gently. We go from the top to the bottom, disconnecting the little foot, getting the oyster ready to slurp.

Are all oysters the same when it comes to opening them? Nope. Some oysters are brittle, depending on the seed. Some have sand, occasionally a pearl. But the thing about oysters is how fresh they are. A live oyster can’t look dead. Think of it — a gallon of seawater goes through an oyster every hour. Here, we only inventory two kinds of oysters a night. We want them as fresh as possible, so we only buy locally and get them delivered less than two days out of the ocean.

Do you ever slip? There is a danger of slipping with the knife. You’re not an experienced shucker unless you’ve had a few accidents. I’ve been at this for three years. A few times I’ve had to go the hospital for stitches. This week was a good week; I cut myself, but I didn’t have to go to the hospital.

Have you ever found a pearl? Nope. In two and a half years at East Coast Grill, I have never once found a pearl — but a customer did, once.

So, oysters are aphrodisiacs? Have you had any personal or professional experience with that? I’ve heard that oysters are aphrodisiacs because they are rich in zinc. And zinc makes you either want to fight or fuck. I have not put this to the test myself, but I do see a change in people’s behavior once the consumption hits a dozen oysters.

5 courses with: Mickey Crawford, Owner of the Druid

Even after the St. Patty’s Day madness has settled down,owning an Irish gastro-pub is no easy task. You live upstairs from the bar. Late nights are devoted to sorting out “issues,” and early mornings are spent at the Boston Fish Market getting the fresh fish for the handmade fish and chips. When you ask Mikey Crawford, the owner of The Druid, about himself, the first thing he says is, “I’m Irish.” He doesn’t say much after that.
It’s like pulling teeth to get him to talk — until he starts to pour a pint of Guinness. Then the conversation begins. The stout settles, the foam turns to black, and then, with skill developed over 20 years of pub work, Crawford tops it off and deftly decorates each glass with a perfect little shamrock sitting pretty in the foam. Guinness art, Irish style.