Swan Oyster Depot

After all these years of passing Swan's going hither and yon, I finally walked in for a quick lunch and it was a revelation. Being short, counters, marble or not, and bar stool are not appealing to me for dining. It does, however, bring one back in time to another era, where people did not have the luxury of lingering and savoring their lunches. Primarily a seafood outlet, I suspect it was started by the Sicilian family that still owns it, as a way to sell what they caught from their Monterrey fishing boats, a boat design that is definitely Mediterranean, and peppers the wharves in Northern California to this very day. Next visit I'll have to ask. One great advantage of sitting at the counter was my proximity to the fish case. Everything looked very fresh including Sandabs, Rex and English Sole, and smoked salmon. The staff was gregarious and in-your-face with a welcome greeting; such a pleasure in this day and age. When was the last time a restaurant employee asked you what your name was?

The restaurant itself is vintage by default, since no one saw fit to change it over the years, but why change what clearly is a successful venture? I think my grandparents may have come here in the 20's or 30's. Except for the "rubber duckies" of the 60's, it looks like it's a few decades short of a century old.

Truly, the clam chowder tasted more like clams than any other I have ever ordered. My only regret was not ordering the bigger bowl. It's a simple recipe, but it doesn't need anything else; this is coming from a person who loves bacon and bell peppers mixed into her clam chowder. I suspect Swan's recipe had nothing more than clams, onions, potatoes and cream or milk. When I told Jimmy, one of the five sons of the original owner, that this was the "clammiest clam chowder" I had ever eaten, he asked if I could guess the secret. My response was "fresh clams" and that was indeed the answer. I asked if they sold jars of shucked clams and he said he could make a container for me, if I wanted one. It was obvious that they do not use cans of Snow's chopped clams at Swan's.

Crab cocktail is the biggest menu item at Swan's, but I ordered the shrimp cocktail. It was a classic, but shrimp is so less dramatic than crab that I've vowed to order the crab next time around. The parfait dish was jammed with shrimp and it was drizzled with a seafood sauce that may have been nothing more than thinned ketchup. It should have been more, so I found myself adding Tabasco sauce, to gave it the little zip that it needed. As I walked out, I saw large cooked prawns in the window. Another missed opportunity as they also offer prawn cocktails. They would have made a superior choice to the shrimp.


1517 Polk St
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 673-1101