Blackfish beats the winter blues
By Sabine Wilson
For the TODAY
“I was going to be an artist,” said Rob Pounding, winner of the prestigious AAA 4 Diamond Award, the Mobil 4 Star Award, the DiRona Award and many more cooking-related accolades.
Chef Pounding, who has owned the Blackfish Café in Lincoln City with his wife Mary since 1999, has a lengthy and illustrious resumé.
Traveling all over the world to study food, Pounding was able to accumulate valuable experience that he implements into his restaurant.
But, before the various cooking awards, he was an art major at a school in Chicago, following in the footsteps of a long line of artists in his family.
“Our family has artists going back for generations.” Pounding said. “My great grandfather has a piece hanging in The Metropolitan in New York.”
While studying art in Chicago he had the “realization that I wasn’t brilliant” and moved on.
If you were to see the way his dishes are plated, you might argue that he did indeed become an artist, though the journey there was destined to take a detour.
“I got drafted during the Vietnam War and, when I got out, I was kind of lost with no place to go,” he said.
“So, I got one job as a cook and then another and finally decided ‘This is fun. I like to make people feel good and food makes people happy.’”
Pounding entered culinary school and, after getting his degree from the Culinary Institute of America in New York, went straight into the field.
“I got locked into high-end hotels, specifically resorts,” he said. “Resorts are where the food is extremely good.”
Working at upscale restaurants in the New York Metropolitan area, then resorts in South Carolina, Montana and eventually landing on the Central Oregon Coast as executive chef of the Salishan Lodge in 1985, Pounding developed habits that would form the basic standards he holds at his restaurant to this day.
“I began to do a lot of research on the regional cuisines of where I worked,” he said. “I became amazed at the volume of interesting foods being raised in Oregon. It was beautiful.”
After years of working for others, Pounding realized, “The one thing I’d never done during my career was have my own restaurant.”
Coincidentally enough, he had an affinity towards the place where Blackfish Café is today.
“I drove by this building every day,” he said. “And I thought, ‘If that place ever becomes available, I’m going to jump on it.’”
And once it did, he was ready, hiring a design company to outline the modern and thoughtful lighting system and a furniture maker to design the tables and the unique small booths that intimately seat two.
“He designed all of the furniture specific to this place,” Pounding said. “It’s birch with mahogany in between.”
Fun fact? The building was built by a GI that had just come back from the war in 1945.
More than 20 years since the Blackfish’s opening, Pounding still exercises his values for the family business.
“We try to buy the very best ingredients, even if it’s the most expensive,” he said. “Sustainability and organic, regional foods is what drives us.”
While the practice of shopping locally and regionally has recently become a mainstreamed standard, Pounding has implemented this mindset into all of his cuisines during his entire career.
“I have been working with a market gardener from whom I get my vegetables for 20 years,” he said. “They drop off whatever is in season and we figure out a way to use it. I also work with local fishermen. You don’t look for your dishes, you let them come to you.”
Take, for example, the Cioppino of Northwest Seafood, made with fresh seafood including scallops, salmon, prawns, clams, mussels, Dungeness crab and other fin and shellfish, braised in a red wine, tomato and herb broth, and served with grilled rustic bread crostini.
While scallops are notoriously known for being dipped in preservatives so they will last longer, Blackfish goes the extra mile to ensure the scallops have not been chemically-altered. This ensures a beautiful golden bronze color once seared in the pan.
As a restaurant on the coast, a salmon dish is essential. The Blackfish’s mouth-watering Skillet Roasted ‘Ocean Trolled’ Chinook Salmon entrée is basted with a fennel lime butter atop house-made Oregon blue cheese potato gratin.
While the average restaurant stays open for only five years, Pounding credits Blackfish Café’s longevity to his trust in his wife Mary, loyal crew, their sustainable and regional foods and quality ingredients and a commitment to showing up consistently.
The Blackfish Cafe is located at 2733 NW Hwy. 101, Lincoln City, and is open Wednesday through Sunday. For more information, go to www.blackfishcafe.com or call 541-996-1007.