|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
A waterfront restaurant with a floor-to-ceiling jellyfish aquarium, custom 6-foot hearth, glass kitchen and second-floor clubhouse is now open at Westpoint Harbor in Redwood City.
For a restaurant boasting all the bells and whistles, Hurrica Restaurant & Bar is not trying to be an exclusive dining experience – it aims to build community and give back to local organizations while keeping prices more affordable.
“We want everyone to be able to come, whether you own a boat or you’re a member of a yacht club or not, but be on the water and have fun and have a great destination for your family and your friends,” said co-founding partner MeeSun Boice.
Departing from traditional yacht club culture, Hurrica is not owned by The Club at Westpoint, a nonprofit club for boaters and water sports fans operating out of Westpoint Harbor. Instead, Hurrica is open to the public and run by the same team behind San Francisco restaurants Waterbar, EPIC Steak and Mersea Restaurant and Bar. The classic Hurrica V sailing yacht, which was featured in the movie “The Great Gatsby” and is the namesake of the restaurant, was docked in front of the restaurant for the opening Jan. 26.
Hurrica serves seasonally evolving modern American fare, with many dishes cooked over live fire. While you won’t find the menu on Hurrica’s website due to frequent changes, entrees on the current dinner menu go for $38-$55. It’s not a seafood restaurant; it’s a restaurant for water lovers.
“I love just doing anything on the water, but I’ll probably never be able to afford a boat,” Boice said. “How cool is it that if you want to go kayaking, come on out and go kayaking and then come have a beer at Hurrica?”
Boice, co-founding partner Parke Ulrich and executive chef and partner Justin Baade all share a love of water sports, a connection that led them to the opportunity to open Hurrica. Ulrich and Boice met Mark Sanders, who built the Redwood City marina, through the West Point Regatta, an annual yacht-racing event in the San Francisco Bay. Sanders wanted to have a yacht club and a restaurant on his marina, but he didn’t want the restaurant exclusive to the club.
“The culture of the yacht club is they don’t even want to be called a yacht club,” Boice said. “They call themselves The Club at Westpoint because they didn’t want to have that sense of exclusion where, ‘You don’t have a boat, you can’t be part of our club.’”
Boice, who focuses on sales and marketing, designed Hurrica and also co-founded Mersea with Ulrich. While Ulrich is the executive chef of EPIC Steak, Waterbar and Mersea, he is not taking on the role at Hurrica, leaving that to Baade.
For executive chef Baade, who has been cooking in San Francisco for the last 20 years, coming to Redwood City is an exciting opportunity to partner with farms in Santa Cruz, Salinas and Half Moon Bay.
“I just went and toured a ranch in (San Gregorio), Pomponio Ranch, that does a super regenerative agriculture model for beef and pork,” Baade said. “I’m new to this area, so I’m looking for those partnerships, but that’s the exciting part of it for me.”
He defines modern American cuisine as local ingredients cooked with techniques used throughout the world. Hurrica’s signature dishes include kombu-wrapped 1.5-pound lobster ($110), seared yellowtail jack ($39) and pan-roasted black cod ($42). Small plates include warm milk bread ($8), Mendocino uni ($10) and shellfish chowder ($16).
“There’s this misconception about fine dining and elevated cuisine that it needs to be stuffy and formal in order to be good,” Baade said. “And my approach to it is very simple: Find the best ingredients and cook them simply, but with intention and technique…we want our food to be approachable, but have the level of quality and ingredients and technique that you would find in much higher-end and fancier places.”
The broiled live sea scallop at Hurrica is topped with a garlic and chive butter, finger lime and chervil. Photo by Magali Gauthier. 
The Mendocino uni brioche appetizer at Hurrica includes caulifower tapenade and crisp prosciutto. Photo by Magali Gauthier. 
Hurrica’s kombu-wrapped lobster is served with roasted potatoes, enoki mushroom and truffle ponzu. Photo by Magali Gauthier. 
Hurrica’s bigeye tuna sashimi appetizer is served with shiitake shoyu tare and a chili garlic crunch. Photo by Magali Gauthier. 
Hurrica’s yuzu kosho cured king salmon is served with chilled sesame noodles, marinated cucumber and shiso. Photo by Magali Gauthier.
A custom-made 6-foot hearth stands behind a glass wall separating the kitchen from diners. Many of the dishes on the menu feature components cooked on the hearth, ranging from beets to dry-aged tomahawk steaks.
“That hearth was custom designed to Justin’s exact specifications,” Boice said. “So Justin can’t leave or he’ll have to take the hearth with him because that’s his hearth right there.”
And speaking of customization, Hurrica is happy to accommodate all types of diets and create made-to-order dishes.
“We will accommodate anybody,” Baade said. “Servers will be trained to engage with the guests and say, ‘What do you like? Are you looking for something richer and satisfying?’ And we will pull from different aspects of the menu to create whatever we need to create for somebody… That’s part of the fun of cooking.”
The main dining room overlooks the marina through large patio doors, and diners can also watch chefs behind the glass kitchen. The dining tables are custom-made from redwood as a nod to Redwood City. The jellyfish aquarium separates the main dining room from the bar and currently has 100 baby jellyfish. Another 100 will be added to the tank, and the jellyfish will grow in size over time. A secondary dining room and patio seating are also available.
Jellyfish swim around a tank at Hurrica. Photo by Magali Gauthier. 
One of the dining rooms at Hurrica. Photo by Magali Gauthier. 
A view of Westpoint Harbor out of a Hurrica dining room in Redwood City. Photo by Magali Gauthier. 
The bar at Hurrica. Photo by Magali Gauthier. 
The exterior of Hurrica in Redwood City. Photo by Magali Gauthier.
Just outside of the restaurant, construction is underway for a harborfront pool for The Club at Westpoint. The second floor clubhouse, also exclusive to yacht club members, has its own bar, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the marina and ample skylights. The clubhouse is opening soon, awaiting final elevator checks.
Private dining and events will be available to book starting Feb. 15.
Built in a corner of Hurrica is a to-go cafe, cleverly named the H2Go Cafe, which is expected to open in mid-February. The reasoning behind this cafe is threefold, said Boice: to serve those who live on their boats in the marina, people who dock at the marina as a destination and don’t have a car and the large youth community that uses the marina, like the Peninsula Youth Sailing Foundation and the LEMO Foundation.
Hurrica plans to partner with investor the LEMO Foundation, a nonprofit that provides resources to student athletes, to run food education programs.
“We’re a big believer in the harbor and the people in the harbor and the yacht club,” Ulrich said. “And because of that and our history, we’re big believers in the community. We will be tied into the community in many different ways.”
Giving back to the community isn’t new for Ulrich and Boice. Waterbar has raised over $132,000 for the Marine Mammal Center since 2009, EPIC Steak continues to host its annual fundraiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind, and Mersea Restaurant and Bar partnered with One Treasure Island to provide meals to struggling residents during the pandemic.
“When you’re in the restaurant and you’re about feeding, you’re not just feeding the stomach, you’re feeding the soul and the spirit,” Boice said. “Being an orphan, if it were not for the kindness of strangers, I wouldn’t even be in America building this crazy restaurant.”
Whether you arrive by land or sea, love fish or hate it, have a boat or don’t, Boice welcomes everyone to come by.
“We really want people to know that Redwood City is not Deadwood City,” Boice said. “We wanted to create a place that everyone feels included and to give back. And that’s what we hope to build in the heart of Redwood City.”
Hurrica Restaurant & Bar, 150 Northpoint Court, Redwood City; 650-499-4858, Instagram: @hurricarestaurant. Open Wednesday through Sunday from 5-9:30 p.m. Lunch service starting soon.