“He told me, ‘I have great respect for these crabs. It was Tagliapietro, the fisherman, who suggested naming the new spot Moëca. After Benedetto closed during the pandemic, “the idea for a seafood restaurant really took hold,” Pagliarini says. It’s a fittingly refined dish for an ingredient that represents the business model. To start, Moëca is featuring green crabs in a savory, steamed-egg custard topped with wild-harvest shiitake mushrooms from Martha’s Vineyard, corn, and green onion.
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The flavor is strong, however, so many local chefs are using them to infuse sauces, soups, stews, and even a whiskey. “Green crabs are not easy to work with,” he continues, noting they yield very little meat. “I remember receiving a 30-pound bag and opening it up to fierce, little, determined crabs that wanted to run all over the kitchen,” Pagliarini recalls. Pagliarini got involved in 2019 with his team at Benedetto, a high-end restaurant at the Charles Hotel, collaborating with the Green Crab Project and Venetian fisherman Paolo Tagliapietro. These tiny, prolific creatures eat clams and oysters, compete with native crustaceans for food, and destroy local marsh habitats-and they are becoming even more abundant in the northeast as ocean temperatures rise.Ī number of local non-profit and research organizations have been working for years with Boston-area seafood distributors and chefs to educate diners about these invasive green crabs and market them as a sustainable, flavorful shellfish option. Moëca is an Italian colloquialism for a small, green crab that’s both a delicacy in Venice and an invasive nuisance for New England fisheries. That’s the ethos, in fact, behind the restaurant’s name. “You can’t cherry-pick the top of the food chain and have that be a model of sustainability,” he adds.
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And adapting to what’s available doesn’t just apply to the choicest daily catch. “The menu is going to be alive and agile,” Pagliarini says. Chef de cuisine Brian Gianpoalo is envisioning, for example, a large-format dish of roasted striped-bass head presented with pancakes, herbs, and sauces so diners can make DIY bites at the table. Diners will see this prized summer fish on Moëca’s opening menu in two ways: raw, as a ceviche with stone-fruit aguachile and a crunchy, tapioca-based squid-ink “chicharron” for dipping, and also as a grilled entree accented with dried zucchini, tomato, and a seaweed vinaigrette.Īs the menu and operations expand at the new restaurant, certain seasonal fish will be utilized even more. Pagliarini, who co-owns his restaurants with wife Pamela Ralston, has been cooking in Boston for 20 years and says local striped bass is an annual treat. “We just live in the moment,” the chef says, “and the striped bass season going on right now is one of the best in recent memory.”
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So launching his sustainably minded seafood restaurant and raw bar Moëca on August 3-at the peak of New England’s fishing season-has been nothing short of delightful. For Michael Pagliarini, the Best of Boston-winning chef behind Italian gem Giulia, cooking is all about making the most of the ingredients you have.