Joshua Skenes Has A Fleet Of Fishermen And An Abalone Farmer On Retainer

THE CHEF OF TASTING- MENU TEMPLE SAISON GOES THE DISTANCE TO GET THE GOODS.

- John Birdsall

THE FLUKE IS KELP-BROWN AND SPECKLED, SHINY, STILL WET from the tank. It strains against the cutting board, thrusting up its head and tail to convulse into a taut, furious U. The spiny rays of its fins ripple, as if trying to find traction against currents of air— an impossible escape. Its splayed eyes look desperate.

We’re at the seafood butchery station, under a tall, frosted-glass window that looks out onto a South of Market alleyway in San Francisco, flooding light on the fluke slowly expiring on its wooden board. With a downward lunge of his blue-gloved hands, Joshua Skenes drives the tip of a chef’s knife into a spot behind the head that experience has mapped. His features compress with the effort. “You go through the brain,” he says, “to paralyze the nerves.” Skenes steadies the fish under one hand and severs the caudal fin with the other, then snakes a thin wire into a cavity in the flesh. “This prevents rigor mortis,” he tells me. “You’re bleeding the fish, but in a way where the heart’s still pumping all the shit out. It’s pretty straightforward.” Nothing about it looks that way.