A seafood restaurant with a focus on sustainability on the Upper East Side.
: Chef David Burke’s seafood-themed restaurant professes to offer a menu with approximately eighty percent of its seafood caught through sustainable fishing measures. As admirable as this seems, Burke’s menu is even more admirable for its freshness and creativity. A page of appetizers as long as the entrées inspires sampling. A trio of sashimi includes three lively raw fish selections, kindai tuna toro (a sustainable bluefin tuna) with pickled mushrooms, sour cherry and soy; hamachi with sea urchin and shishito pepper; and big eye tuna served in vinaigrette with capers and Picholine olives. A trio of tacos brings a crab salad taco dressed with old bay and cumin seed, a tuna tartare taco with pineapple and macadamia nuts, and a hamachi taco with avocado and masago caviar. Main courses are headlined by a changing list of fish priced by the pound and served simply with caper-herb vinaigrette. Diners can dress up their fish with a choice of “top hats” that are either seafood-based (garlicky clams and chorizo, or shrimp and leek fondue) or vegetarian (warm artichoke and tomato nage, or gnocchi and mushrooms). More ambitious entrées include a rich, savory monkfish paella, with monkfish taking the place of customary chicken; Dover sole; or a 55-day dry-aged rib-eye for those averse to seafood. The wine list includes plenty of nice whites that pair well with seafood. David Burke fans will recognize his signature cheesecake lollipops and homemade ice creams and sorbets on the dessert menu alongside Fishtail’s own signature sweet, the Fishtail “Can o’ Cake,” a molten chocolate cake for the entire table.