El nuevo restaurante de mariscos de East Sixth tiene pescado fresquísimo y mucha personalidad

Fish Shop, from husband-and-wife team Justin Huffman and Nicole Rossi, pairs Champagne, martinis, seafood towers, and oysters with a lively atmosphere.

East Sixth’s New Seafood Spot Has Super-Fresh Fish and Tons of Personality

Fish Shop opened on East Sixth Street, in July, and quickly became the talk of the town thanks to its powerhouse team (co-owners and married couple Huffman and Nicole Rossi), prime location, and, it must be said, an internet argument with an influencer. After the dust’s settled two and a half months in, the restaurant is still packed with people craving super-fresh fish, classic cocktails, and old-school, communal vibes.

Huffman and Rossi met at Austin’s eternally hip French restaurant Justine’s, where Huffman was the chef and Rossi was a server. Both grew up in California with easy access to the ocean’s bounty. The couple had dreams of starting their own restaurant group, and when the two began mapping out concepts, they decided to start with Le Beef, a pop-up burger joint. Le Beef turned into a fan favorite, but finding the right space for a more permanent iteration proved difficult. However, their search led them to a perfect location for a seafood restaurant idea they’d been throwing around.

“[Fish Shop] might be our favorite concept that we could have potentially done, based on the food and what we get to do and how playful we get to be” Huffman told Eater in an interview.

They got the idea during the pandemic, when Huffman and Rossi were in Los Angeles working for the famed Chris Kronner of Kronnerburger, and Huffman had done a hard pivot to picking up fresh-caught fish at the airport and delivering it around town. In imagining Fish Shop, Huffman planned to work with that same fish company to get his favorite California products shipped to Texas, he picks his fish up from Southwest’s cargo facilities three times a week. This direct connection to the supplier also means Huffman gets his hands on fish rarely seen on restaurant menus, to create daily specials as a way to satisfy what Huffman calls his insatiable creativity.

The menu is an approachable mix of fancy fare, ever-rotating oysters, seafood towers, and comfort foods, fish and chips, a caesar salad meant to be eaten with your hands. Huffman plans to attract diners with the familiar dishes, then tempt them to try things that might be new like a conserva or half-cracked dungeness crab with chili butter off the specials blackboard.

Cocktails come from bar manager Bob King and Rossi, who worked at East Side Showroom. The menu is heavy on Champagne and Rossi jokes the reason she opened Fish Shop was to serve her favorite kind of martini (a 2:1 ratio of a botanical gin and cocchi americano, then an olive, lemon oil, and onion garnish).

Fish Shop is designed to be a place that encourages conversation, the interior feels big-city cozy, and even a little rowdy, so you might commune with the people next to you. Recently, two adjacent tables who didn’t know each other struck up a conversation and started sharing dishes, exactly what Huffman and Rossi are trying to achieve. The chefs are encouraged to crack jokes with customers from the open kitchen. “We’re trying to have a good time at work. We want to work with people that are outgoing, that love to interact with people, and love to have that human connection” says Huffman. One such hire was rising culinary star Harvard Aninye, the former chef de cuisine at Canje, whom the couple calls a “huge ball of personality.”

Rossi and Huffman worked in restaurants on East Sixth earlier in their careers and now find themselves surrounded by old friends with their own restaurants. They want to be a hub for both diners and chefs who enjoy that sense of community, the pair hope to invite industry friends from around the country into Fish Shop for takeovers and pop-ups.

Though Fish Shop is the duo’s first restaurant in their grand plan, they do hope to continue to bring more of their ideas to life, especially a permanent space for Le Beef. Rossi, who comes from a long line of restaurateurs, knows that opening one restaurant is hard, and two is even harder. But, she believes if you can get past that hump, things just start to fall into place.