Calumet Fisheries

So I am a fan of the Anthony Bourdain show "No Reservations", in fact we make it a point when traveling to hit the most interesting Epicurean spot depending on the location. So after viewing the Chicago episode back in February we finally found ourselves in the industrial south side of Chicagoland (pretty much under the Indiana Skyway) parked in front of a small store front, which had a small brick building completely enveloped in smoke..

First off - this place is as unpretentious as you can get. No formal dining room, no major signage, just a billow of smoke and the smell of burning cherry wood to guide you in. Very similar (minus the billowing smoke) to another top 5 Chicago spot for us - Hot Dougs. Both are off the beaten path, neither are touristy (nothing wrong with that..but I think you follow me) and both focus on one thing, and do that one thing extremely well.

But enough about Hot Dougs..this one is all for Calumet Fisheries.

Once we stepped in the door we knew that "No Reservations" had treated this place well. Just off to the left of the entrance you'll see a huge promotion poster of NR with an entire paragraph of praises from Tony Bourdain written on it. As well as some still shots from the filming above the door of him eating in the car with Melissa Chiu (who I don't necessarily care for in terms of culinary opinion), as well as a few of him just strolling around the joint. These are easily spotted next to the "Blues Brothers" newspaper articles (remember the car jump scene over a bridge in that one? Yeah..I dont remember that well either..but it was filmed here just out front of Calumet Fisheries). By the way if your hard up for a DVD copy of the "Blues Brothers" you can pick one up here.

Immediately we got chatted up by a guy behind the counter, who we later found out was the current owner (his dad opened this place with his brother in law in 1948), and quickly identified us as being driven there via the Bourdain show. Evidently his business has grown since the airing of the initial show, and he sees website traffic spikes days after every rerun of the show. He told us that his client base previously was 100% return customers, now that additional traffic come from his national TV exposure on the Travel Channel.

We were quickly treated to a free sample of the smoked shrimp..and that's all it took for us to quickly snag 1.5lbs of the stuff. I've honestly never had anything like it, you would think smoked shrimp would be dry and rubbery but because they smoke theirs in the shell it comes out moist and extremely flavorful. Now keep in mind that the "vein" is still in there, and you can remove it with a little effort..but if you were that picky you probably wouldn't be buying smoked seafood from a tiny shack on the south side of Chicago would you? It should be noted that I tried with the first one..but quickly decided I could deal with it for the sake of time and rapid consumption.

After our order of:

-1 smoked cut of trout

-1.5lbs chilled smoked shrimp

-1 smoked cut of salmon (1lb)

-2 smoked chubs

Full menu can be found here.

We were quickly invited to check out the smokehouse next door (it should be noted that we were chatted up by 2 other employees while waiting for our food to be weighed..very good customer service as these guys REALLY want to educate you about how they smoke fish the old school way..which is awesome). So with a bag full of smoked goodness and a little of their house hot sauce we went out the front door, walked 15 feet, and were at the smokehouse..where the owner who just took our order met us, quickly introduced us to the guys loading up the cherry wood fires, and joked around about only charging us $1 a head if we wanted to walk into the smokehouse...which, even being a joke, I was about ready to do.

After joking around and getting a front seat education to their traditional smoking methods (it was said that the little brick hut used for smoking the food was around 100 years old) we were off to the dining room (read: car parked out front) where we quickly dived immediately into the shrimp, followed by a chub, and halfway through the salmon we saw the owner coming back out...to offer us one of the chubs which had just been baked above the fires with the smokehouse doors open. In fact in some of these pictures you'll see all the smoke coming out of the smokehouse, and notice that the smoke actually put on a rainbow when I took these on site shots with my iPhone camera. I should point out the smoking process before going any farther:

-bring seafood overnight

-"bake" in smokehouse above cherry wood fires, with the doors open (hence..all smoke escapes)

-Close doors and smoke the fish for additional hours

I should point out that with my limited experience in smoked foods #1 (brine), and #2 (bake) I've never encountered before..and now that I think about it #3 is different as well since most producers of smoked foods smoke over sawdust..these guys use chunks of real wood..and it makes on hell of a difference.

Ok..back on track. So the owner runs out one of the chubs which had just been baked (you understand what that means now yes?) which was likely one of the fish we were just looking at, and is likely in one of the pics on this post, for us to try..on the house.

Long story short - it was awesome. Like the best fresh baked fish you've ever had but with that briny goodness that knocks your socks off. So after dining on about 30% of what we had in the car out front of the store we were stuffed. Wrapped the remainder up and we were on the 45 minute trek back to the house.

If your still reading, and I hope you are, I would encourage you to try this place out. If you live in Chicagoland then get your ass out there ASAP, if your not..well remember this place for your next time through town..there's a good chance I'll want to go with you when you do.

Oh and because this blog is mostly beer focused - I had a Ommegang "Biere De Mars" when writing this...and it was awesome.

Cheers,

Brian