Twenty years ago, a restaurant opened on Divisadero Street that changed the neighborhood’s trajectory.
Nopa wasn’t just seasonally inspired and farm-to-table at a time when “seasonally inspired” and “farm-to-table” hadn’t yet permeated the city. It was a place whose ethos—making everything in-house, from scratch—and atmosphere were as much of a draw as its damn good Cal-Mediterranean menu and thoughtful cocktails and wine list.
Nopa Fish's interior is full of details by local artisans.(Maren Caruso)
Like all of the small businesses in the Ferry Building’s marketplace, Nopa Fish is little more than an alcove, with two long communal tables that graze the hall’s boundary. But they’ve made it their own (with the branding and creative help of McCalman Co. and The Falcon and The Filly), deliberately choosing makers from the Bay Area arts-and-crafts community to fashion details like the custom tile mural by Outer Sunset ceramicist Georgia Hodges, hand-painted signs by David Benzier, and custom tables by Berkeley cabinetmaker Betz Sweeney. The couple’s 16-year-old daughter is still adding fish to the ceramic school that swims across the walls.
The daily catch available at Nopa Fish's market counter(Maren Caruso)
In the glass case lining the counter, lies the real thing on its bed of ice, a selection that changes daily depending on what small-boat local fisheries have pulled from the water. Each of the outfits they partner, identified with the help of Joe Conte of Water2Table, is transparent in their supply chains, making this an ideal spot for picking up a beautiful whole trout or sand dabs or hook-and-line-caught halibut or coonstripe shrimp to make at home—preferably for someone who will appreciate their immaculate pedigrees.
Behind the counter, a small army—including Jossel himself—is manning the ranges. When I ask Rhodes what she’s loving on the menu right now, she thoughtfully calls out almost half of the menu. The Pristine Fish is a must, she says, not just for the delicate slices of several types of raw fish but for the “nerdy rice” it’s served with—a special varietal produced regeneratively in Sacramento (Luna Koshihikari). About this she is not wrong. The Japanese-inspired bowl, with its perfectly poached egg, ginger, avocado, and greens, really does have some of the best sushi rice I’ve ever had under its fantastically flawless fish.
For a relatively small menu, Nopa Fish has a lot of variety. There’s fish and chips—made with wild, local rockfish, harissa aioli, pickled veggies, and cumin-spiced fries—and a fried rockfish sandwich with lime, cucumber, and carrot-and-ginger-cabbage slaw on an Acme milk bread bun. There’s trout and corn chowder, wild-caught shrimp arancini with parmesan and basil pesto, and a summer salad with seasonal fruit, sheep’s milk feta, almonds, and a honey balsamic vinaigrette. There’s even a crispy tofu sandwich for those avoiding seafood, with organic curd from fourth-generation Potrero Hill makers, Wo Chong.
Grilling up the rueben-like smoked albacore melt at Nopa Fish(Maren Caruso)
Fish smoked in-house shows up in two dishes: the albacore melt and the trout latkes. On Rhodes’ recommendation, I try the latter, fat potato-and-onion hockey pucks of the Nopa 1.0 variety spread with a thin layer of pickled beet hummus (the root veggies for which they grew themselves), then topped with generous chunks of smoked McFarland Springs trout and served with a side of horseradish crème fraîche. It’s a simple combination that’s so detailed in its construction, it would make even a New York deli wish they had Northern California-level ingredient access.
Just three weeks in, Nopa Fish is still working out the kinks, says Rhodes. Just that day, they were playing with new signs to encourage people to enter on the restaurant’s left side—past the refrigerated shelves of canned waters, juices, and beer—and exit out the right, something our pre-programmed human brains are having trouble catching on to. It’s exciting to be so invested in a new project, though, she smiles, and they’re already beginning to map out next steps, like adding catering to their offerings.
For the rest of us, the market and eatery are just one more reason to swing by the Ferry Building, which, at 127 years of age, just keeps getting better.
If you’re anything like me—who walked away that afternoon with a full belly à la Nopa Fish, a tree oyster mushroom farm from Far West Fungi, a bottle of Hog Island Oyster Co.’s Bloody Mary mix, a coloring book starring Thailand’s pygmy hippo Moo Deng from Book Passage, and a pretty pink package filled with cookies and macarons from Miette—it’s never a disappointment.
// Nopa Fish is open Monday through Friday from 11am to 7pm and Saturday from 10am to 7pm; 1 Ferry Building, Shop 31 (Embarcadero), nopafish.com
Pristine fish and smoked trout latkes at Nopa Fish(Shoshi Parks)
