One of our Home Chef contestants, John Campbell, showcased a remarkable piece of tuna, a gem-like, nearly translucent piece of fish. He told us he bought it at Metropolitan Seafood in Lebanon, a place he swears by for all of his specialty seafood dinners.
Metropolitan owner Mark Drabich has a name for tuna that spectacular, that fresh. “We call that fish porn.” Drabich unapologetically gushes over seafood, how jazzed he gets spotting a spectacular catch at the New Fulton Fish Market in New York. “I get a little excited about fresh fish.”
Sushi-grade tuna, fresh not frozen, brought directly from the market, can run $30 a pound. That’s $15 per dinner, says Drabich. “It’s a lot of money. I’m not immune to that,” he says. “But,” he adds with an excited energy creeping into his voice, “it’s really good.”
Metropolitan, open 26 years, began as a 450-square-foot shop. Now the store is 4,000 square feet, an operation still small enough to allow Drabich to buy seafood in small, selective quantities.
At Metropolitan, customers are clients; Drabich wants your business and your children’s business. He aspires to that kind of loyalty by doing things the slow, stupid way. Such as buying the fish whole, filleting it himself. “Once it’s cut, you don’t really see the history of the fish.”
His clients get it, the difference in quality. One customer recently announced she’d chosen to celebrate her birthday with a splurge at Metropolitan rather than going out to dinner.
“I almost cried,” says Drabich.
The shop is open most days until 7 p.m. and offers everything from cod to caviar (provided it’s available, of course).
But don’t be surprised if you don’t see Drabich, especially as dusk approaches. He’ll have already retired for the day, given that he leaves for the fish market at 12:30 a.m. After all, if he waited to rise at 3 a.m. — or even if he reached the fish market by 3 a.m. — he’d already be missing the best.
“Three is for losers.”
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