The new blue

Could Joachim Sandbichler really be in Portsmouth?

By Kathy Gunst

PESCE BLUE, 103 Congress Street, Portsmouth, NH, (603) 430-7766. Dinner served daily; reservations suggested, particularly on weekends. In mid-July, lunch service will begin.

MAN ABOUT TOWN: Joachim Sandbichler finds a little bit of Europe in Portsmouth.

Twenty years ago Portsmouth, New Hampshire could lay claim to the title of “restaurant capital of northern New England.” Today, that notion seems ridiculous. But in the days when Portland had yet to see the opening of its first sushi bar, Portsmouth boasted a vibrant restaurant scene. At the center of this culinary renaissance was the Blue Strawbery (sic), arguably one of the most innovative American restaurants of the 1980s. The Blue Strawbery offered a five-course prix fixe menu that featured bold dishes like Pheasant Stuffed with Artichoke Hearts in a Champagne Sauce, served in a dining room that uncannily melded New England Shaker style with Upper East Side New York fru-fru.

The Blue Strawbery closed more than a decade ago, signaling Portsmouth’s slide into culinary mediocrity. Anyone living in the Seacoast region in the 1990s had to travel north to Portland or south to Boston to enjoy a truly great meal. Now there is hope that the long drought is finally over.

Walking into Pesce Blue, Portsmouth’s newest restaurant, I was simultaneously filled with excitement and regret. The past two decades have seen Portsmouth’s transformation from a working-class seaport to an upscale tourist town. The old five-and- dime has been replaced by a Gap store. That great emporium of caffeine, Starbucks, occupies the space that used to be the Greyhound bus station.

The day the Little Professor Book Store (then the only in-town book store) closed was a sad one for us lovers of literature. I figured we’d get another gallery filled with overpriced ceramics. But the buzz was that some guys from California, Rome, France, or maybe it was New York, were opening a fish restaurant. I forgot all about it until I passed the place one day and saw that the entrance had been redesigned with a partition wall with dozens of small black shelves, each one holding a flickering votive candle that appeared to be floating in the air. Cool, I thought. I had no idea what surprises lay inside.

Pesce Blue is the hippest, most urban, most modern-looking restaurant in town. It’s a long room with cinder block walls; a black industrial grid ceiling; big, hanging, white, globe-shaped lights; and mosaic columns of tile separating the little bar from the dining room. A huge, beige curtain hangs along the length of one wall, looking like it could unexpectedly open on to a hidden stage.

The performance at Pesce Blue features the talent of Chef Marc Segal, with his uncanny ability to cook fish to perfection. The wait staff is professional in a way you sometimes find in San Francisco or New York — attentive without being suffocating, friendly without ruining your evening.

My family and I visited the restaurant on Father’s Day. The dining room was full: families and couples looked around the chic room disoriented. The looks on their faces seemed to say, “Could this really be Portsmouth?”

We looked over the wine list (impressive, but not overwhelming) while sampling warm olive bread and fabulous onion foaccacia. A waitress came by our table and poured golden, aromatic olive oil on a small white plate in a dramatic circle and then filled in the middle with dark, black balsamic vinegar. A yin-yang of condiments.

When the appetizers arrived, I knew Pesce Blue was going to be something worth shouting about. The half order of linguini with Maine peekytoe crab, lemon essence, and brandy was one of the finest pasta dishes I have tasted anywhere. The pasta was cooked al dente and gently tossed with big hunks of sweet crab meat in a creamy sauce rich with brandy and lemon. The tuna tartar was an ultra-fresh mound of diced bluefin tuna mixed with shallots, cucumber, and superbly peppery olive oil served on a bed of finely diced, moist avocado and cucumber. A zesty pink peppercorn vinaigrette was lightly drizzled over the top. The baby arugula salad was tossed with shaved fennel, orange segments, and perfectly grilled shrimp, gently doused in an orange-flavored vinaigrette. The taste was light, refreshing, and superbly balanced.

Although there is a category on Pesce Blue’s menu called “Landfood,” meaning steak and chicken, fish is clearly the main focus. The Whole Branzino, a delicate Mediterranean sea bass, was baked in a salt crust, a popular Spanish method of cooking seafood. It was moist, almost juicy, with just a hint of salt to highlight the natural flavors of the fish without overwhelming them. The Branzino was accompanied by a refreshing salad of fennel and golden raisins. The yellowfin tuna was grilled to just the wrong side of medium rare. But while it was slightly overcooked the fish was still bursting with flavor. Surprisingly, I was never asked what degree of doneness I wanted for my tuna. The tuna was served with porcini ravioli that smelled like a walk in the woods — the sheer earthiness of wild mushrooms encased in tender pasta, topped with a Sangiovese wine sauce that had been reduced to a rich, thick essence.

My husband is a huge fan of skate, a fish that almost never appears on restaurant menus in the Portsmouth area. But it’s one of the great locally-caught fish, with a thoroughly unique texture and flavor. At Pesce Blue, the skate was oven-roasted to perfection, and drizzled with an orange essence that was just a bit too strong for the fish. I tasted orange instead of skate on first bite, and that’s not the way it should be. The hot white bean salad, tossed with smoky bits of bacon, was the perfect accompaniment.

The Pasta alle Guittara, hand-cut noodles with a creamy basil pesto (my vegetarian daughter decided to forgo the seared diver scallops that come with it) was superb — tender-fresh pasta in a subtle creamy, basil-scented sauce.

Dessert seemed out of the question after all that rich food. But my husband and children disagreed. We ended up sampling three deserts. A chocolate cake, half baked and bursting with gooey chocolate essence, was surrounded by golden brown caramelized slices of banana. The crème brulee was rich and creamy. My youngest daughter cracked through the sweet, hard crust with her spoon and ooohed and aaahed for several minutes before sharing. My husband tried the panna cotta (which literally translates from the Italian as “cooked cream”) and spooned delicate morsels of the rich “pudding” into his mouth with a deeply satisfied smile on his face.

When Joachim Sandbichler, a native Austrian who spent many years living in Italy, visited the Seacoast a few years ago, he fell in love. “Portsmouth,” he explains, “is like a little piece of Europe in the middle of America.” Leaving Los Angeles, where he was in charge of six seafood restaurants, was a risk. He arrived in town and, after much searching, found the space on Congress Street that houses his new restaurant. He hired an architect friend from LA to transform the old book store, and found that California Chef Marc Segal was “ecstatic” about the idea of moving to New England. The goal: “to set the stage for a comfortable, great dining experience.”

Sandbichler was interested in opening an “Italian-American seafood restaurant.” He says the crucial step was finding the ingredients. “You must have the highest quality and freshest ingredients when you’re cooking seafood,” he explains. “The closer you get to the guy on the boat, the better your freshness is going to be.” Sandbichler works with Portland’s Browne Trading Co., seafood purveyor to some of the best chefs in the country.

“I wasn’t sure if Portsmouth was ready for this,” says Sandbichler. “I wanted to provide a place for people who have been a little more exposed to the world and eaten different foods. There are a lot of restaurants around here all serving good food, but it’s all so much of the same food.”

The food served at Pesce Blue is like a breath of fresh sea air. Our meal was superb, nearly perfect. While many people grieve the loss of small-town Portsmouth, a place like Pesce Blue gives us hope. Sometimes change brings good things. n