Anthony's Chef Reno Rodriguez on the Joy of Oysters

Did you know the official National Oyster Day is August 5th?

APRIL NEALE

A significant fear when living far from a large coastal city in a smaller landlocked one is the anticipatory loss of access to fresh seafood. And if you have been in Boise for at least five to ten years, you know the City of Trees has experienced a seafood surge in cuisine.

Anthony’s Restaurant has a new chef and oyster aficionado, Reno Rodriguez. His mission is to make you a believer in fresh oysters and oyster bar culture with the regional chain’s direct access to the briniest, best fresh bivalves of Washington State. He is aided by the restaurant’s happy hour for unlimited oysters on the patio in addition to the year-round menu.

Rodriguez, who spent time in Spain after graduating from the California School of Culinary Arts, Le Cordon Bleu Program, and who worked with acclaimed chef Roy Yamaguchi, is the biggest fan of his seafood offerings, flown in four times a week from Seattle and paired with local ingredients that epitomize the essence of the Pacific Northwest.

Chef Reno joined Anthony’s Restaurants in 2021. A fortuitous meeting with Anthony’s Executive Chef Pat Donahue brought Chef Reno and his young family to Boise, where the lifestyle suited him. “I met Chef Pat, our corporate chef,” Reno says. “From there, things went swimmingly. It was nice to see how family-centric this restaurant is. Which is just a complete change from what I was used to.”

Oysters are the bread and butter throughout Anthony’s, where their plump, proprietary “Anthony’s Select” oysters hail from Discovery Bay. Noting that they were receiving upwards of 80 dozen oysters a week in Boise, Chef Reno points out: “Right now we’re featuring Anthony’s Select, out of Discovery Bay and exclusively ours. This oyster is a very hearty oyster and lightly briny. It’s one of our full-bodied signatures that has stood the test of time.”

But what about the people who are afraid to make the jump to try a raw oyster? Chef Reno explained the various sizes and the “merroir,” a portmanteau between terroir and marine that reveals how oysters take on the elements of their environment. This is why some have cucumber or melon overtones, some are brinier, and some are super creamy and mild.

Anthony’s Chef Reno Rodriquez and Executive Chef Pat Donahue have mastered the fine art of oyster shucking.

Photo by Karen Day

“Beginners usually like to dive into the Kumamoto oysters,” says Chef Reno. “They are a bit smaller and have a distinct yet mild flavor. And many people in Anthony’s call the Kumo the training wheel of oysters because it’s so approachable. It’s effortless to wrap your head around trying them without being too large and intimidating. And right now, we also have a Baywater Sweet, along a similar line to the Kumo, and that is slightly sweet with a hint of cucumber, a touch of brininess for a smaller oyster. Many oysters are named after where they’re harvested and grown.”

As for how you eat them? Anthony’s offers the old-school cocktail red sauce, fresh horseradish, and a French-style mignonette. Of course, some people are purists and love the full taste of the sea from the liquor (don’t call it juice!) inside the oyster. Or, add a squeeze of lemon or a drop of hot sauce as flourish.

With their distinctive notes, these shelled gems of the sea are a real delicacy. But you might be surprised to learn that oysters are extremely good for you — a veritable high protein, low-calorie superfood with vitamin D, copper, zinc, and manganese plus omega-three fatty acids, B vitamins (especially B12), vitamin A, folate, vitamin E, and selenium. These micronutrients, combined with calcium, can slow or prevent bone loss in older people due to osteoporosis. So, you feel good when you eat oysters and paired with the right wine or beer, it’s the perfect meal if you are hitting the town. In a serving of six medium-sized oysters, there are less than 50 calories.

“Outside of the incredible taste, and aside from the nutritional aspect and being Keto-friendly and loaded with protein, they’re just a fun food to eat. And that’s my personal experience,” says Chef Reno. “We had this Olympia oyster, the only oyster still native to Washington. The description of the flavor was coppery and minerally. You also get these raw horseradish root notes and even raw potato notes. Oyster flavor profiles are not single-dimensional. You can taste cucumber, brine, and sweetness. This whole range of flavors comes through, and it makes eating them so much fun because one oyster will taste so much different from the next, species-wise.”

As for the purported aphrodisiac qualities of oysters, many attribute this to the high levels of zinc—a mineral essential to sexual health.

According to Rowan Jacobsen, author of A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur’s Guide to Oyster Eating in North America, “[the Chinese concept of] Qi is the life energy that flows through all beings and dissipates when we die. Most of the food we eat has no qi because it is dead. But since oysters are just barely dead as we eat them, they still have a lot of residual qi hanging on, and eating them is like having little qi bombs go off inside you. I don’t think it necessarily turns you on sexually, but it does turn you on about life in general—and that can manifest itself in lots of ways!”

Get your Qi on at Anthony’s Happy Hour and oyster patio specials from Monday through Friday, 4 PM to 6 PM, and on Saturday and Sunday, from 2 PM to 8 PM.