The fish from your favorite restaurant with a buttery texture and pronounced flavor may not be fresh. and that's by design.
Fishmonger Liwei Liao meticulously dries fish in climate-controlled refrigerators, extending shelf life by weeks and eliciting unique flavors from snapper, salmon, mackerel, branzino, tuna, sea bream and more. Their fish appears on menus throughout the southern United States (and across the country), whether in tacos or fine dining tasting menus. Sold through its Sherman Oaks market, Joint Seafood, as well as through a rapidly expanding wholesale list that includes some of the world's most prestigious chefs and restaurants, challenging the perception of how fish is processed and served, helping to eliminate food waste and spread. The gospel of Liao: “Fresh is boring.”
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“I always said I wanted to change the way fish is sold, but I never realized it would have been on this scale,” Liao said.
Various cultures have aged and cured seafood for centuries, although Liao's techniques, inspired by the process one might find at a high-end steakhouse, certainly popularized the concept since he opened Joint Seafood in 2018. He currently supplies about 30 customers. weekly, with another 60 to 70 accounts that purchase less frequently.
Liao, 41, works with many of the city's big actors, including Brothers Sushi and Damian. Local chain Granville recently began serving its aged branzino at its five locations, and Liao occasionally complements the fish at two-Michelin-starred Michael Cimarusti's Providence, which now operates its own on-site dry-aging chillers. Beyond Los Angeles, celebrity chefs like Dominique Crenn place individual orders for private dinners and events, while the Catbird Seat in Nashville also counts as a client. A new account at Station Casinos marks Liao's recent foray into Las Vegas.
Spec Fisheries, Liao's new high-volume production facility in Vernon, is scheduled to open this fall; The large aging chambers, unlike the Joint's smaller coolers, should help process about 30,000 pounds of fish each week, compared to the 4,000 to 6,000 pounds Liao currently processes per week. A second Joint location, with 4,000 square feet of retail space and its own output of 10,000 pounds of fish processing per week, will open next year in the Arts District near Little Tokyo. Anticipating so much product, he has focused on further eliminating food waste with a new handmade roll restaurant, Uoichiba. The fast-casual sushi counter serves its repurposed, dry-aged “offcuts” (high-quality offcuts) as temaki and with bone broth and miso soup at Culver City's Citizen Public Market food hall, as well as at Joint.
The next time you visit your favorite Los Angeles restaurant, look for “dry aged” on the menu and then notice the condensed, buttery texture and clean, pronounced flavors. Most likely you have Liao to thank.
