News

by Shea Carver on May 30, 2023 | Reprinted from Port City Daily

NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Almost two years after opening its restaurant and taproom on Wrightsville Beach, Flying Machine is leaning more into its coastal roots as it undergoes a transformation this summer.

What was once known as Flying Machine Taproom and Kitchen will become Flying Machine Oyster Bar in the next two months. 

“With the additional focus on oysters, we thought the best way to do it was to actually change the name rather than just update the menu,” co-owner Grant Steadman said.

Diners, especially vacationers to Harbor Island, expressed an interest in tasting more seafood, especially locally caught, since the restaurant opened in 2021. Steadman and co-owner Dave Sweigart decided to listen.

“Our waterways have a lot to offer,” Steadman told Port City Daily two weeks ago. 

Flying Machine’s chef, Ryan Jankowski, already works with Middle Sound Mariculture and N. Sea Oyster Farm. Steadman said they’re expanding to work directly with more farmers as well, with a goal to have four or more kinds of oysters available.

“A lot of farms are about to open up in our area or have just begun harvesting,” he added.

The bivalves will be situated in a newly installed raw bar that takes up roughly half of the current draft bar in the main dining area. A shucker will be on hand to educate visitors about the oysters, where they come from, the flavor and growth process. — Traditionally oysters in North Carolina are at the height in months that end in “R.” During the offseason, when the water is warmer, Steadman said they may bring in oysters from Virginia, Massachusetts and Canada.

“But the real focus is going to be on our waterways because we want to be an example of our local fare,” Steadman said. 

Once the oyster bar opens, a new menu of shooters will launch as well. Bar manager Brian Pratt has been devising a few different takes. Naturally, the traditional vodka-based tomato concoction will be sold, but there will also be a Mezcal shooter, which most excites Pratt. 

“The mezcal with the oyster gives the shooter a roasted oyster flavor,” he said. “We’re using lime, celery, cucumber, tomatillos, green Tabasco, fresh cracked salt and pepper — it’s smokey, briny and delicious.”

A chicken noodle soup shooter makes for another original flavor; FM released it last year to fanfare. It contains vodka, clamato, celery seed, Worcestershire sauce, lemon and a spiced salt rim.

“One of our most unique ingredients is our housemade chicken noodle soup-infused vodka,” Pratt said. “We do that by infusing vodka with celery, parsley, onion, carrot and some chicken stock.”

Pratt has been studying various recipes and ingredients to devise a fun shooter menu. He calls oysters the most alluring to work with because of the flavor profiles. 

“They are so surprising and incredible, I love incorporating them into the cocktail program here,” he said.

The restaurant works with local fishermen but also other regional purveyors for vegetables, grains and protein. Tidewater Grain Co. from Oriental, North Carolina, for instance, provides Flying Machine its heirloom rice. 

According to Jankowski, Seven Springs “has the best pork in North Carolina.” It can be tasted in the shrimp and grits. Created with Carolina stone-ground grits, the cornmeal is slow-cooked in milk, the local shrimp poached in butter, finished with a fresh Parmesan and Cheshire pork bacon.

“A perfect summer dish,” he said.

Jankowski, who has been working in kitchens for 15 years, attended the Culinary Institute of America Hyde Park and most recently worked under Chef Patrick Hogan at Caribsea on Emerald Isle. He moved to Wilmington and began his tenure at Flying Machine last fall. In April, Jankowsi launched a new seasonal menu, highlighting the classics of the South and Low Country. 

“We took many older classic dishes that are tried and true and, in our way, reconstructed them with local ingredients,” he said.

Collards, for example, are slow-braised and highlighted in a creamy collard baba — a Southern take on the Middle Eastern baba ganoush. The earthy flavor is brightened by lemon instead of vinegar in the pot liquor and served with peanut gremolata, parsley and olive oil, with pita. The chef approached the item to appeal to vegetarians as well, replacing bacon fat with oyster and shitake mushrooms to bring back the texture and umami flair. 

Last fall he served greens as part of an oyster special, having cooked them in miso before placing them atop the oyster, with Parmesan and bacon fat biscuit crumbles.

The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner, and while seafood will play more prominently, Jankowski hasn’t done away with other dishes, both vegetable- and meat-forward. In fact, one of Janowski’s favorites is the Southern summer classic: tomato heirloom sandwich. 

“Coming into some hot days, with people coming and going for a long day on the beach or the boat, we really wanted to keep this menu light and refreshing and easy to pair with a cold beer,” he said. “Local heirloom tomatoes, herbed cream, pickled onions with lemon zest and peppery arugula — it’s addicting and doesn’t weigh down your palate.”

“Ryan has experience and passion for seafood and we’ve been really lucky to have him,” Steadman said. “And he’s definitely a driving force behind this raw bar concept.”

As Flying Machine prepares for changes to its restaurant, its flagship brewery on Randall Parkway could be ramping up production soon as well. FM beer will be landing at Wilmington International Airport (ILM) in one of Tailwind Concessions satellite bars. 

“We approached them with the idea of selling beer in the airport, and obviously with their expansion, they are looking to do different things,” Steadman said. 

Tailwind president Jeff Switzer, who oversees concessions at ILM, said that’s how a lot of their partnerships grow: when businesses reach out as vendors. 

The bar will be located along the new terminal near gates seven, eight and nine. Switzer said working with locals gives the airport a sense of place.

“We try to be good stewards of the community — the first thing people see when they fly in, and the last thing they see when they’re leaving the airport are local businesses,” he said.

Though details are still being hammered out on which beer FM will be selling, Steadman said the goal is to switch out flavors frequently. The brewery has an end-of-summer target to tap the beer at the Delta and American Airlines gates.

”We’re proud of being creative with our beer,” Steadman said and added, by fall, after the oyster bar is up and running in Wrightsville Beach, FM’s oyster stout will likely return.

by Meggan Robinson on April, 25, 2023 | Reprinted from Tasting Table

Imagine you order a dozen oysters on the half shell, and when they arrive, you discover they’re green in color — an odd hue, particularly around the edges. You might be tempted to send them back, but you might also be missing out on an unexpected delicacy. Green gill oysters aren’t oysters that have gone bad; they’re a rare find that’s only available seasonally and can only be found in a couple of places in the world.

Green gills haven’t always been prized; in fact, the folks who harvested them in the U.S. used to have to sell them off cheap or even discard them because consumers didn’t understand them. Oyster promoter Tres Hundertmark told Coastal Review, “I had to throw them away. People like green vegetables, they don’t like green meat.” The days of buying discount green gill oysters from a waterman looking to unload them for next to nothing are over, though, and it turns out that it just took a while for a few oyster producers in one U.S. state to catch up to what the French have known for much longer.

What exactly is a green gill oyster?

Oysters are filter feeders, which means they get their nutrients and flavor from the water they live and grow in. That’s why oysters from different places are prized (or shunned) for their unique flavors. There’s one tiny creature, a micro-algae about the size of a width of human hair called Haslea ostrearia, that’s solely responsible for green gill oysters. Haslea ostrearia are diatoms, a kind of algae that are typically golden brown in color, but this species has a brilliant blue pigmentation known to the French as marennine.

As oysters pull in nutrients from their habitat — either farm-raised or naturally grown — green gill oysters retain some of the color from filtering the micro-algae, which stains the flesh with a range of blue-green hues. Interestingly, though it’s safe to eat oysters year-round, the blue-green hues of green gills are only apparent in colder months, appearing first in the fall, deepening over the winter, and vanishing again as waters warm in the spring.

Where can you find green gill oysters?

Green gill oysters have long been cultivated in France, specifically in the waters of the Marennes-Oléron coast, which is in the southwestern part of the country. There, green gill oysters are carefully tended in claires, or shallow clay ponds, where both salt and fresh waters mingle and provide an ideal climate for Haslea ostrearia. The fines de claires vertes are prized for their distinctive green color and flavor.

As it turns out, there’s another place where Haslea flourishes, and it’s the waters of North Carolina. In the marshy estuaries of the state’s extensive waterways, naturally-occurring green gills had long been sold at discount prices because they weren’t commercially desirable. That’s now changed, though, and oyster operations like the Sandbar Oyster Company have begun deliberately farming green gill oysters, capitalizing on the unique “merroir,” a term akin to terroir, but referring to a marine environment.

Do green gill oysters have a distinct flavor?

French green gills were awarded the distinction of the Label Rouge, or Red Label, in 1989, the very first seafood product to attain the honor, which is regulated by the French Ministry of Agriculture. As North Carolina production of green gills has flourished, with varieties like the Atlantic Emeralds, American Jade, Divine Pine, and Wild Greens, you may wonder if it’s the color alone that makes these oysters so desirable.

As it turns out, green gills have a distinctive flavor as well. Some describe them as salty and nutty. Others characterize the flavor as earthy, briny, and creamy. Mike McCarty, Executive Chef of The Lobster Trap in Asheville, shared a particularly lyrical description of green gills with WNC Magazine, relating, “Eating these oysters is like taking a sip of delicious champagne,” adding, “Their flavor is very unexpected for that of a North Carolina oyster: salt at the front followed by a sweetness and truffle flavor on the finish — very clean and crisp.”

How should you serve green gill oysters?

If you are lucky enough to procure green gills, they should be enjoyed as the delicacy they are. Those that are true oyster aficionados hold fast to the opinion that the best way to consume them is raw, carefully shucked, and served on the half shell. But don’t make the mistake of simply gulping down these coveted green delicacies from the shell and swallowing them whole; rather, savor them to explore their distinctive flavor and texture. 

For those who aren’t thrilled with the idea of eating raw oysters, an ideal way to showcase this rare prize from the sea is through a simple grilled preparation with savory compound butter swimming in the shell and a light smoke from the fire. Though dishes like oysters Rockefeller are certainly delicious, all that flavorful topping would conceal what makes green gill oysters so unique and is better saved for oysters that are more widely available.

W

The oysters that cluster more than 300 miles of coastline are bringing in tourists from across the globe. Here, we explore just why the briny shellfish is reason alone to visit.

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by Ellen Himelfarb on March, 14 2023 | Reprinted from National Geographic

The coast of North Carolina fans out like a scallop’s edge, forming hidden inlets caressed by warm breezes. It’s positively spoiled for shoreline — blessed twice over due to the wispy chain of barrier islands with their heroic dunes and salt marshes. 

And yet in the whip-thin towns of the Outer Banks and beaches to the south, people must surely be outnumbered by the scoops of pelicans that glide overhead. The coastal lowlands are as far from an international airport as London is from Lockerbie and unrecognisable from the wild Appalachian mountainscapes inland. This makes the coast a blessed find for outsiders seeking a windswept retreat with notes of romance and history.

The residents like it that way. Their life here is bound up in the brittle coastline and fragile ecosystem of flora and fauna that’s been in slow decline since British settlers arrived in the 16th century. And now, they’ve seized the opportunity to reverse the effects of historic overharvesting and environmental stressors. 

The North Carolina merroir (a play on ‘terroir’ used by the marine farming sector) has such high concentrations of salt that you can practically smell it through the cordgrass. Some varieties, like the Crab Slough oyster found off Cape Hatteras, house a tiny pea crab in the place of a pearl. As they mature, they absorb nutrients and filter impurities like excess carbon through their gills, making the water more hospitable for other sea life. Truly, they’re superheroes of underwater multitasking. 

Locals have responded on every front to the challenges of rebuilding the oyster industry. “Willis Brother’s Seafood was an economic hub of our county. Over time, the building became a dilapidated eyesore. I had so many fond memories growing up here, so we purchased it in 2015,” says Sue Hill of Down East Mariculture, a hatchery providing farmers along the coast with oyster seedlings, or ‘spat’. “I had no idea what I was going to do with the building, but I knew I wanted to do something to help commercial fishermen and women who couldn’t make a living doing what their families have done for generations. Mariculture is a relatively new, growing industry in North Carolina. So, I thought, I can do that!” 

Those teardrop-shaped clams are like fossils scarred with the history of the Old South. Beloved by the Algonquin natives and netted out of vast reefs by British settlers, the eastern oysters delighted early Americans and kept Southerners working in the battered post-Civil War economy. Fishermen of the last century dredged stocks to almost nothing, though, while hurricanes and pollution did their own damage. 

In the years before the pandemic, coastal North Carolina embraced a new ambition, and that’s to become for oyster-lovers what Napa Valley is to oenophiles. In 2020, the North Carolina Oyster Trail launched with an online map of major sites for spotting, purchasing, eating and celebrating oysters. What’s made this possible is the proliferation of oyster farming in this stretch of the Eastern Seaboard. 

Unlike the wild kind, farmed oysters don’t spawn and grow according to season — they mature year-round to a uniform size that looks tantalising by the half-shell on a bed of ice. Small-scale growers nurture them from minuscule spat, and ‘plant’ them in mesh beds that bob on the water. And together they’ve put the state back at the shucking-edge of the oyster business. “Our first season, we worked with two oyster farmers,” says Hill. “Five seasons later, we now work with 64.”

Operations like Hill’s are the heart and soul of the Oyster Trail, offering the sort of experiences that make a holiday. At Slash Creek Oysters up the coast on Pamlico Sound, Katherine McGlade and Spurgeon Stowe take visitors round their farm on a boat called Half Shell to watch tidal seawater wash through blooming molluscs. And at Oysters Carolina on the shellfish sanctuary of Harkers Island, local legend Ryan Bethea conducts tasting odysseys around the salty Back Sound by kayak. 

Blue Water Grill, a casual, woody affair on Roanoke Island with fishing nets hanging from the rafters, has always managed to elevate the oyster, much to the delight of longtime customers. The restaurant is celebrated for its October oyster roasts and bloody Mary pairings. Now, with the mariculture boom, owner Scott Shields no longer has to dispel the notion that oysters shouldn’t be eaten in a month without an ‘r’. Oyster farms override that old prohibition, which is linked to regulations for the wild oyster harvest.

For locavores seduced by a fleshy oyster doused with jalapeno remoulade, there’s no better setting for slurping than a family business whose owners fish to live and live to fish. As for the tropical climate, 400-year history and inconceivable quiet… they’re like the spicy dash of Tabasco on top.

Plan your trip

To discover more about North Carolina and how to book your trip, visit travelsouthusa.com and visitnc.com