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Slack Tide Fish Co. opens June 6 at 1320 Summit Ave., in the Ballast development in Scott’s Addition. (Photo by Fred+Elliott Photography)
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Executive Chef Caleb Shriver (at right) directs the team during a soft-opening event. (Photo by Fred+Elliott Photography)
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A corner of the dining area inside Slack Tide Fish Co. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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Vermillion snapper with herb salad, anticuchera sauce and aji verde (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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The Broken Egg, featuring eggs, jamon iberico potato chips, soubise and trout roe (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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Tuna crudo with aji amarillo, lychee and hazelnut (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
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Tigers Blood Shaved Ice, with watermelon and strawberry granita, coconut, and basil (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
As seafaring folks know, a slack tide is the brief window just before the tide changes direction, a fleeting, in-between, idyllic moment when the water often presents a welcome stillness.
Approaching the opening of Slack Tide Fish Co., their new restaurant and raw bar, brothers Tucker and Thomas Brown — also owners of seafood and butcher shop Yellow Umbrella Provisions — feel a kinship with the phenomenon. For two long years, they have been working toward bringing their vision to life. But now, all the pieces and people are in place, and they’re ready to set sail.
“It was all about finding people that we trust,” Thomas says. “That’s so key to us, knowing that they’re going to put out the right product and going to treat the customer right. We put a lot of emphasis on that at Yellow Umbrella.”
On Friday, June 6, Slack Tide will open its doors at 1320 Summit Ave. in Scott’s Addition. Relying on fresh catches and incorporating local and global coastal influences, the restaurant is part of the Ballast development, a hub of food businesses along a quaint cobblestone corridor. Once home to Blue Bee Cider, the historic buildings of the former city stables now encompass the recently debuted Cirrus Vodka tasting room, a third outpost of Yellow Umbrella and the Browns’ new dining venture.
Tucker says, “We had always talked about doing something with a raw bar component in Richmond. Once we got this space, it was like, ‘Wow, this could be really unique.’”
Richmond natives, the Browns acquired decades-old Yellow Umbrella Provisions in 2020. They had been customers of the shop as far back as they can remember, and, along with owning a business like Yellow Umbrella, opening a restaurant had always been a family dream — one they began to take more seriously in recent years.
Thomas says, “We have the relationships with the meat, seafood [and other] purveyors, we have all of those existing, and we pride ourselves on the really solid vendor relationships, and it was like, ‘Now we need to find the person for Slack Tide.’”
Slack Tide Fish Co. Executive Chef Caleb Shriver (Photo by Fred+Elliott Photography)
That person would be executive chef Caleb Shriver, who hadn’t held a head chef position at a full-service restaurant since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Midwest native, along with his wife, Michelle, operated the acclaimed Dutch & Co. in Church Hill for nearly a decade before closing the business in 2020.
Shriver may have grown up landlocked, but he says, “When I came to Richmond and learned more about the kind of the local delicacies like shad roe, the sugar toads, soft-shell and blue crabs, things like that, I very much developed an interest in that, in the way the city and this region appreciates that food.”
That appreciation for seafood had previously led him to Yellow Umbrella Provisions as a shopper. One day, when Shriver was visiting the original location, longtime Yellow Umbrella employee Dave Graziano introduced him to the Browns. Soon after, the duo had hooked their new chef.
“I like to think that, because I come from the Midwest, and maybe it is more of an outside approach, I can make [Slack Tide] a little bit more unique,” Shriver says says. “My thought was, I’ll do seafood and just kind of do it the way that I know how.”
The result is a range of dishes that tap into Thai, Peruvian, Spanish and American flavors. Tuna crudo comes rolled and floating in a bright aji amarillo sauce with lychee and hazelnut, while shrimp fritters arrive six to a bowl, the delicately spiced spheres resting on zippy shrimp aioli and topped with slivers of pickled gochu peppers and Thai basil.
For diners who relished The Perfect Egg, a signature dish at Dutch & Co., meet its less composed, but equally delightful distant kin, The Broken Egg: soft-cooked eggs perched atop a bed of crushed jamon iberico potato chips and dotted with fresh bursts of dill and scallion, soubise and briny pops of trout roe.
Mains travel between land and sea, with a smoky buttered hanger steak served with crispy potatoes, an approachable smashburger, soft-shell crab andouille risotto, and a vermillion snapper with herb salad and a melange of Peruvian anticuchera and aji verde sauce.
“I’ve never cooked one particular type of food,” Shriver says. “I kind of get inspiration from everywhere. The goal going into it and creating the menu was that everything had to be, in our opinion, excellent. We’ve been striving to do that.”
Joining Shriver is sous chef John Hartman, previously of Dutch & Co. and Blue Atlas. Helming the corner raw bar, a swooping counter with about a dozen seats, is Tyler Yates, a Yellow Umbrella alum who is a certified Level 1 Oyster Steward through the Oyster Master Guild.
The meaty mollusks are another focal point at Slack Tide, with a trio of raw oyster options always available, their locations untethered to a region. Current offerings include Wavelength from Matheson Oysters out of Gloucester; Beausoliel, hailing from the waters of New Brunswick, Canada; and Pemaquid from Maine.
The strongest through line at Slack Tide is its tenured team of leaders and employees. Steering the bar is Beverage Director Steve Yang, previously of Brenner Pass, Black Lodge, Metzger Bar & Butchery, and Pink Room. Having worked for so many Euro-centric restaurants, Yang says, he is enjoying the shift, and many of the cocktails take notes from the classics but have a distinct spin. A heady pina colada dubbed Shanghai Nights blends blanco tequila with tofu-peanut cream, lychee and pork rinds. Saluting an Old-Fashioned, the Tsukiji marries Johnny Walker Black Label, fino sherry and matcha, while the Billingsgate is a vesper martini masked by oyster, kombu and white soy.
Wines include whites with high minerality and chillable reds from France and Italy to Germany and Austria. On tap: Blue Bee Cider’s Hewes Crab, Sapporo and easy-drinking pilsners.
Joining Yang behind the well is Vanna Hem of Cambodian pop-up Royal Pig and Madelyn Glesson, formerly of Lolita’s and Get Tight Lounge. Adam Stull, also of Royal Pig and the forthcoming Morty’s Market & Deli, is the general manager.
Stull says, “It feels nice to kind of bring everything together and push it towards the finish line.”
From curved wooden accents that bring to mind a ship’s hull to a wall-sized painting of waterways, the casual coastal theme flows through Slack Tide’s dining room and the temperature-controlled patio.
In the coming months, the business will introduce an adjacent event space with a speakeasy-style cocktail lounge upstairs. A separate kitchen will be used to provide snacky fried food for the Cirrus Vodka tasting room, such as baskets of clam strips and fried fish sandwiches.
And while launching a new restaurant is always a risk, after a smooth weekend of soft openings, the water feels calm and the crew confident. The hope is that the trust the Browns have built with customers, and Shriver and his team with diners, will continue at Slack Tide. It seems they are already on the right path — since debuting on Resy, the restaurant has had over 1,000 reservations made.
“We have a strong team, and the space is beautiful,” Shriver says. “I truly believe in everybody that works here, and that we can achieve what we want to achieve. I think it will be very exciting.”
Slack Tide Fish Co. will be open Tuesday through Thursday from 4 to 9 p.m., Friday from 4 to 10 p.m., and Saturday from noon to 10 p.m. Happy hour is daily from 4 to 6 p.m.
