Blaise Simpson Writer and former Editor of W magazine interviews
Bill Dugan of the Fishguy Market and Wellfleet
Blaise
I’m sorry I didn’t get to Wellfleet when you were doing the Friday nights.
It sounded like such a fun place to be.
Bill
It was great fun. We started something new and gave people another way to look at dining out. It was very rewarding.
Blaise
Before we talk about the changes you’ve made recently, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about how you got started because it’s an interesting story. You were quite young when you got this going.
Bill
My older brother Tom got the idea for his Dugan’s Lobster Trap, from our Uncle Gene.
Gene had worked with Juan Tripp at Pan Am and ran Logan airport in Boston. When he retired from Pan Am he bought two jumbo jets from Flying Tigers and put some Korean Vet buddies to work flying Maine lobsters over to Hong Kong, Tokyo and other Eastern destinations
Blaise
Wow, I never knew that about your uncle,
I remember the “Lobster Trap, it was fabulous
Bill
The Lobster Trap was so successful that he opened a larger restaurant on California Street. It attracted all kinds of people who came to eat the fresh clams, oysters, lobster, bluefish, swordfish and other goodies that up until then had been difficult to find in San Francisco. It was really ahead of it’s time
After learning about seafood there, I was looking for a way to move up to Sonoma or Napa and I thought a good idea was to offer the same products to established restaurants. I began by reaching out to San Francisco restaurants. Rene Verdon was my first client at Le Trianon. I didn’t know who he was but my Mom told me to look him up. She was a big fan of everything Kennedy and Rene was the White House Chef during the Kennedy administration.
Blaise
I remember what a bastion of fine dining Le Trianon was!
Bill
I had a very shy girlfriend at the time. Rene was always asking me to bring her for dinner. When I finally talked her in to going, we get to Le Trianon and Rene comes out to greet us like we were total big wigs.
Then he says he wants us to join some friends and seats us with Julia and Paul Child
She actually remembered me from the Lobster Trap. Julia was a large woman and I’ll never forget that Paul seemed so small next to her. They were both charming people and they really made us young kids feel quite special.
Rene also introduced me to James Beard. At the time, he was instructing at Fournous Ovens at the Stanford Court Hotel. When I met him, I realized he was the guy who came in to the Lobster Trap with Julia Child on a number of occasions .He was this rather flamboyant man who liked to dress in Chinese silk robes and he had heard all about our dinner at René’s. After we got to know each other I mentioned wanting to live in wine country so he arranged an introduction to Robert Mondavi.
I eventually came to supply the Great Chefs program at the winery, which exposed me to many world renowned French chefs. It also allowed me to move to Knights Valley, so I was really fortunate.
Blaise
Very fortuitous and you were rubbing shoulders with some real shakers.
Bill
Udo Nechutny was my second client in Napa. He had worked many years with Paul Bocuse and had been running The Bocuse School in Japan before being recruited by Moet Hennessey to open up Etoile at Domaine Chandon.
It was my association with Domaine that really propelled my career. The Rouas brothers had just opened Auberge du Soleil with Masa Kobuyashi, Bruce Lefebvre was up in St. Helena and Don and Sally Schmidt were operating the French Laundry in Yountville. It was a wonderful learning experience for me.
Blaise
It’s fascinating that you’ve known and worked with so many famous foodies.
Bill
They weren’t famous back then.
There wasn’t this idolatry of the Chef as celebrity like you have today. For instance everyone assumes that Thomas Keller started the French Laundry, but as you know it was the Schmidt’s who developed it and eventually sold it to him. It was very romantic and relaxed. They started the idea that once you were seated it was your table for the night with a fixed menu. It was really way ahead of the curve.
Blaise
You mentioned you started a second company some years later. What was it?
Bill
The Missing Link was my seafood company and a few years before I sold them I opened a smoked fish company called Northern Lights.
Blaise
I used to see the trucks and always thought The Missing Link was such a great name.
You bring up an interesting dynamic with the chef as a celebrity.
What are your thoughts on that one.
Bill
It’s a generational thing. There are shows that glorify everyone from junk collectors to people from Jersey. The anthropological reasoning is what scares me.
It’s no surprise about all the food network content. I think it’s mundane but to each his own.
Blaise
Would you ever want to be in the spotlight?
Bill
No, I put too much value on my personal time.
Blaise
Why did you leave wine country for Chicago?
Bill
I’m asked that a lot and after 23 winters I’m beginning to wonder myself!
I had an opportunity to sell my companies and do some consulting for Nordstrom’s.
I really feel that I lived up country at the very best of times. You remember the Clegg Ranch in Knights Valley?
Blaise
You had some fun parties out there and it was stunningly beautiful.
Bill.
It was. Once Napa became a hip spot to be, it lost its allure for me. But to be fair, if you pick the right time it’s still one of the finest destinations in the world.
I got in and out at a great time.
Blaise
You mentioned working with Nordstrom’s?
Bill
Yes, they were opening a big store on Market St. in SF. and I conceptualized two of the three restaurants within the store. One was a vodka and caviar bar, and the main dining room was spa cuisine. It was really rewarding. I had been working with so many great chefs by that time and I was afforded this wonderful opportunity to see if I could do it myself.
Blaise
So, in 1989 you end up moving to Chicago. What a change!
Bill
I was visiting friends here and around that time the Swedish group who had bought my companies contacted me about the sturgeon farm they were involved with. They wanted me to help market the world’s first sturgeon produced through aquaculture, and its caviar which was the end goal.
The idea was for me to be based at the farm outside of Sacramento which did not excite me.
I had come to like Chicago a great deal. What immediately struck a chord with me was that every one I met was from Chicago. Sounds obvious, but coming from Northern California you tended to meet people from other parts ofthe world or from other parts of the U.S. San Francisco is a very transient City.
It’s still the main reason I love living here. People are so grounded and unpretentious. It was a very cool opportunity and I told them since I would be travelling so much that I would prefer to base myself out of Chicago. They agreed and I signed on.
Blaise when did you start your Chicago Company?
Bill
The winter of 1991
After a couple of years, the Swedes sold out to a multi national and I didn’t want to be a part of it. I had gotten to know local chefs like John Coletta ,Charlie Trotter, Michael Foley, Stephen Langlois and others. I could not find a local fish company that did a good job marketing my sturgeon, so I started my own company and called it Superior Ocean Produce.
Blaise
What about the Fishguy?
Bill
Well, the term ‘guy’ is part of the local vernacular, so it just made sense to me as what to call myself. I threw a coming out party at the Ritz and George Bumbaris and Sarah Stegner did what I still think was the most wonderful food event ever.
I supplied them with aqua cultured items from all over the world and it was so forward that I think it just flew over everyone’s head. The food they prepared was so delicious that folks forgot they were eating cultured proteins at every turn. I’m talking farm raised Halibut from Nova Scotia that was so avant gard that the guests were eating something historic without giving it a second thought. To raise the Halibut was such a difficult undertaking that despite the full backing of the provincial government it never got beyond the experimental stage.They were some of the few people in the world to have tried it and it was like….ho hum. They are raising it now in Norway with success but we're talking over 20 years later!
Anyway, I had been leasing space at the Fulton market and it was a dump. I wanted to build something new that would stand up to inspection. It wasn’t until 1997 that the Fed actually started to inspect seafood plants. There were all these treacherous old ammonia chilling systems throughout and you were literally taking your life into your own hands working there. In fact my stall is where the Publican now sits. It really was run down and now you have many of the city’s top toques setting up shop there. I call that good progress.
Blaise
Earlier, you mentioned that traffic was something that played a big decision as to where to locate.
Bill
I wanted to walk to work and stop wasting time sitting in traffic. I’m not wired that way. So I found a building within a mile of my home and built it there. Great location for the wholesale in that we are equidistant from O’Hare to downtown. We’re at the airport every day and sometimes twice a day picking up product.
Blaise
What is the neighborhood called where you’re located?
Bill
Mayfair. I Love it here, it’s definitely not a hipster hang and it’s sufficiently under the radar to suit me. The customers we’ve developed over the past 15 years continue to surprise me. They come from all over and I think they like that we’re small and let’s face it, there aren’t many fish mongers left.
Blaise
That’s true. I always thought your market looked so nice and clean, Great light and colors and your staff has always been so pleasant. Why did you feel the need to do it over?
Bill
That’s nice of you to say and I did hear similar remarks but I wanted to get it ready for the next 50 years. My goal is to have my staff and their families carry this on, long after I’m gone. The business of fish mongering is in danger of becoming extinct, but I feel it’s an important trade to continue. It’s a challenging environment for small business owners like me, but I know our audience will be there because we are dealing with such finite resources.
Blaise
Speaking of resources I know you to be a concerned environmentalist. There is so much information out there now and it’s difficult to know who to listen to.
Bill
That’s true. Very confusing
NGO’s and NFP agencies are just looking to get their own bread buttered in most, if not all cases. It’s like gun control and the NRA. These esteemed aquariums and organizations all have there own contributors and constituents they need to be accountable to.
The information is highly skewed and not all based on sound research and science.
A great deal of conjecture and flawed data.
You can’t simplify what to eat with color coded cards. The Monterey Bay Aquarium says to not eat East Coast fish and The Audubon says not to eat West coast fish. Given where they’re based it’s one of those things that make me go hmmmm.
In this regard, I’m not accountable to anyone but my customers, therefore I want to provide good information so they can make well informed choices. I have not sold Chilean Saw tooth (aka Sea Bass) in over 13 years. I stopped selling Bluefin Tuna and Caspian and Black Sea Caviar over 10 years ago. I was making a great deal of money on these items. Dealing Bluefin Tuna out of Cape Cod is how I started my business.
I don’t wait for a cause célèbre to respond or act.The poor management of many fisheries stems from a handful of greedy people in most cases.
I speak with the fishermen and pay attention to what forward thinking countries like New Zealand are doing. North America does a comparatively good job of protecting seafood stocks, particularly Mexico, but we are still doing so much wrong. Fishermen are concerned for the future of the seas with good reason. At least the small family operators that I deal with are, and they have the best information. The best thing we can all do is to stop being such horrible polluters. That would be a good start.
Blaise
It’s a difficult subject; there are so many mouths to feed on the planet.
I agree with you about the pollution. Those satellite images of vast tracts of the ocean just swirling in flotsam and jetsam are really disturbing.
Bill
Disturbing is a good way to put it.
Blaise
Okay, let’s lighten things up a bit. So what is the new Wellfleet all about?
Bill
A return to a simpler way of thinking regarding cuisine. It’s about serving luxurious, fresh items without the clutter. Currently I feel cuisine is too fussy and contrived.
My approach is to reduce the common denominators to a minimum so I can concentrate on doing a handful of dishes really well and offer it at a distinctive value.
I’m getting straight from the source and with the produce company I own in Michigan I’m buying direct from the farmer. Folks talk about keeping it simple but I really want to walk the talk.
Blaise
You have a produce company in Michigan?
Bill
Yes it’s called Mr. Tomatahead.
I started working with Todd McWethy from McWethy Farms in Three Oaks, Mi. over seven years ago with his heirloom tomatoes and greens. He has this amazing year round hydroponics operation.
My neighbors near my home in Galien, Mi are all farmers. I grow my own asparagus and the property was a former berry farm so there are lots of berries in season.
We have w orld class stone fruit and so much agricultural distinction. Outside of the cash crops (corn, soy ,winter wheat) farmers usually specialize in a few crops outside that orbit. I’ve established a great network over the years. And they’re my neighbors so it’s wonderful that we can help each other.
It all comes so fast (the produce) that I’m only able to offer it to the handful of chef clients who supported it from the beginning.
Blaise
So what do you mean by ‘simple’ in regards to food .Are you speaking now about seafood for which you are known or across the board.
Bill.
For everything we offer.
About 20 years ago I went to Charlie Trotter’s and this is when he would sit friends at this small bar he had in the foyer. I was by myself and I’ll never forget this stunning dish he served. It was Spring and he had made a puree out of fresh peas and I would guess that there was some salt and maybe a touch of olive oil in the puree. On top of that was a beautiful piece of poached cod that I had brought him earlier in the day. It was simply steamed and seasoned and it was snow white and sitting on this pool of beautiful green pea puree.
I mean, you can only mimic the colors that nature gives you. It was so startlingly beautiful to me and you could really taste the fish and the peas and it was just so tasty.
So, that’s what I mean by simple.
Blaise
It sounds really wonderful!
I wont keep everything I do on such a minimalist scale but it will guide my decision making process each day.
There is a hierarchy built in to all restaurants that inevitably stalls the decision making process and by the time it’s decided to use something, it’s already gone. In Berrien County the peas are around for maybe 10 days and it’s done. That’s the same with many other products at their peak.
So you have to be able to make the decision quickly and act on it.
I make those decisions daily. It’s the nature of my business. It's what I do.
Blaise
Sounds like a good plan, how large of a daily offering do you plan on?
I look at your weekly list of products and see you have quite a bit to draw from.
Bill
No more than 8 items at lunch or dinner
Pizza will be one item, a salad makes two and a soup makes three. A few fresh fish specials will change every day and round things out.
I made a tuna melt the other day with fresh albacore seared rare and a thin slice of Bel Paese cheese and it was very yummy. Those kinds of simple twists on the familiar.
At dinner I want to take a page out of the 70’s playbook
Protein, starch and veggie on one plate. That will help guide a simple conclusion. Also we won’t be wasting water with all the little plate business.
Blaise
Did you say Pizza?
Bill
I did.
Blaise
Kindly elaborate.
Bill
I have this oven that a friend designed and it can cook pizza in about 70 seconds. I have been working with him for over a year now. You’ll just have to taste these and then you’ll understand why I decided to offer them!
I’ll do a true ‘white pizza’ with fresh surf clams and a ‘Balik’ Pizza which is a proprietary curing process that I employ with the tenderloins from 20 lb. plus Atlantic salmon from the Faroe Islands. They make you want to eat like Fernand Point.
I’m also going to offer a Caviar dish which will give our customers an opportunity to taste three of the world’s great caviars and it won’t be just a small smudge either. I’m thinking 10 grams of each and keeping it under 25.00
Wagyu and Béarnaise, Roasted Abalone, Dublin Lawyer, Fillet of Sole Munier,
Crab Louie, Conch Cutlets, Sturgeon Saltimbocca, Monkfish and Prawn Balti… these kind of dishes.
Nantucket Scallops are in season and I sell a boatload (literally) to my chef clients. The chefs want the shucked meats.
I’ll bring them in live and steam them in the shell like a clam or mussel and they are so wonderful. You don’t see that anywhere but it’s really the best way to eat them.
I call the dish ‘singing scallops’ which is a marketing term I came up with in the late 70’s to market live Spiny Scallops. I’m bringing it back for Wellfleet.
In fact just about everything will be inspired from the 70’s and early 80’s
I’ll be introducing ‘Naked Lobster’ although the Fishguy customers have been using this since this past Spring
Blaise
What’s a Naked Lobster?
Bill
It’s a 26 oz. (avg) lobster that’s harvested in the fall when they’re at their peak.
The raw meat is removed through a process that is very proprietary in nature.
The machines cost well over a million each and there are only two in North America.
The meat is uncooked, yet anatomically perfect .It can be steamed to perfection without having to deal with the shell or the act of cooking it while live which is difficult for many people.
It just has not caught on with any of my chefs which I can’t figure out. To be perfectly honest it’s a major reason why I am re inventing Wellfleet.
Blaise
To prepare naked lobster?
Bill
It’s a mind blower and I want to share it. An idea has to start somewhere.
In 34 years of business it’s by far the most advanced gastronomical break through I have bore witness to. I’m simply acting on it.
Blaise
Thanks Bill, it’s been fun to chat with you.
Bill
You’re welcome .. It’s been nice speaking with you as well.