New Gig Harbor restaurant promises awesome cioppino in just 5 minutes

The owners of a fast-casual seafood restaurant in Silverdale are bringing their made-to-order cioppino, bouillabaisse and Pacific pan roast to Gig Harbor.

Paddy O’Brien, Dave Montoure and Paul Prentice will open their second Kettlefish at 7806 Pioneer Way, where Kelly’s Cafe & Espresso quietly closed last fall.

The trio all have roots in the Seattle area. The O’Brien Turkey House served pie and sandwiches in Arlington for decades, and Montoure recently closed his cocktail bar and diner West 5 after 19 years in West Seattle. Before opening the Silverdale restaurant in April 2019, he had relocated to Kitsap County.

The streamlined menu harnesses the power of steam to quickly and efficiently cook seafood, including shellfish, in jacketed stainless steel kettles. Essentially acting as a formidable double-boiler, the vessel’s interior temperature reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit in under 45 seconds, according to Montoure. Because the food within never actually touches the heat source, it’s less likely to scorch.

“It’s a great, environmentally conscious way to cook,” he said, “and it has the added benefit of cooking seafood perfectly. I can’t stress that enough.”

Due in part to cost, steam-powered kettles are more commonly seen in manufacturing or large commercial settings like schools or hospitals. Alfred Groen is thought to have developed the first double-jacketed kettle in the late 1890s; when copper grew scarce during the World Wars, he turned to stainless steel, and today they are still produced outside Chicago.

The technique never grew to be terribly common on the individual restaurant level outside the East Coast, explained Montoure. There, what kept the house warm and the stoves running in old homes was steam.

He and O’Brien developed the Kettlefish concept after visiting the Nugget Hotel in Sparks, Nevada, which has been serving kettle-cooked seafood stews since 1959. In nearby Las Vegas, crowds fill the oyster bars of Harrah’s, Palace Station and Hard Rock Hotel not for raw bivalves but kettle-cooked ones swimming in the creamy, clam-based broth of their famous pan roasts. In Orange County, California, chef Michael Ritter has likewise gained a following for his Cajun and Creole style at Ritter’s Steam Kettle Cooking.

At Kettlefish, all of the soup bases — prepared in-house ahead of time — are added to a kettle with raw seafood in front of the customer.

In addition to a New England clam chowder and steamers in a white wine broth, their cioppino, the beloved tomato seafood stew, comes together in about four minutes, said Montoure, “and it’s fully realized.”

“It looks like they’re kind of suspended in the air,” he said of the kettles, but you won’t see smoke or steam, save for what’s rising from the food itself. “It’s fun to watch. There’s a little red handle — you turn it on, and you can hear the steam kind of kick into the kettle.”

Then, he added, “You can smell the garlic and the butter and the seafood cooking.”

Montoure and O’Brien considered Kettlefish Silverdale a proof-of-concept pilot location and long-term hope to operate a half-dozen locations in the Puget Sound region.

“We built it small knowing that we were going to learn and build the next restaurant to scale,” he said, and “build upon those successes and try to make the second location even better.”

With an anticipated April opening, the Gig Harbor restaurant will be much larger than the original, which has only a few seats inside and a couple of outdoor tables. Service will be similarly casual, with beer and wine available as well as O’Brien’s Alaskan cod fish and chips (cooked in a fryer, naturally) and Montoure’s crab mac and cheese based on his West 5 recipe.

The food is intended to be well-suited to takeout, whether you order at the counter, at a table on your phone, or online for pickup at a designated time.

“We want people to enjoy a really high-quality meal without having to commit to two hours,” said Montoure.

KETTLEFISH GIG HARBOR

▪ Opening Spring 2022: 7806 Pioneer Way, Gig Harbor, kettlefish.com

▪ Open Now: 3607 NW Byron St., Silverdale, 360-692-9611

▪ Details: kettle-cooked seafood $16-$18, fried seafood starts at $9 for fish and chips to $18 for the Captain’s Platter

This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.