Top of the Market is top of the class

With its sunny, open layout, olive green booths, and myriad windows overlooking the shimmering Foster City Waterway, stepping into Top of the Market is like entering another world. Up here, innovation is applauded and quality is guaranteed. Jazz coos through the speakers, snow-white tablecloths cover the tables, and every dish is prepared in plain sight by chef Ray Negahban in the venue’s exhibition kitchen.

Top of the Market serves both lunch and dinner, and has been around since the Fish Market opened in 1983. Of the family-owned company’s six Fish Market locations, it’s the only one of two locations – San Diego also to have a restaurant of its kind. (The San Diego Mateo Fish Market is also the company’s largest location.) While you can still order some menu items from downstairs, Top of the Market has its own selection of sophisticated dishes that shine in their attention to detail and artistic layouts. The menu is more curated and paired down than the Fish Market’s, boasting around 25 or so unique items that change seasonally, compared to downstairs larger menu that has more then 100 dishes to choose from.

“Because there’s a little more imagination and time, that swordfish you can have simply-prepared downstairs can become a little more complex up here,” says Dwight Colton, the company’s vice president of operations, who’s been with them since the mid-1980s. “We have the time to do more up here. It’s a different pace. We slow things down.”

With its open layout and exposed kitchen, there’s also a more lively, interactive aspect to dining at Top of the Market. You can hear the sounds of sizzling crab cakes, watch cold dishes being prepared at the raw bar, or chat with Chef Negahban about the origin of the fish you’re about to eat.

All of the seafood served at the Fish Market and Top of the Market is sustainably sourced and is obtained locally through Farallon Fisheries, a processing and distribution facility based in South San Francisco that is owned and operated exclusively by the Fish Market. Whether it’s aqua-cultured or wild-caught, Farallon Fisheries makes sure that each Fish Market locations has the freshest catches of the day sourced from all over the world, be it Idaho or South America.

“We like to think of ourselves as seafood people in the restaurant business, not restaurant people in the seafood business,” Colton says. “We know what the oceans are bearing.”

Over the decades, the restaurant has also stopped carrying a number of seafoods due to longevity concerns for the species. Even though Orange Roughy was “one of, if not the most popular dishes in the 1980s and 1990s,” you’ll no longer find it on the Fish Market’s menus, nor will you see Chilean white sea bass, another at-risk species beloved for its meaty texture and large white flakes.

“If we run out of wild, fresh, accessible seafood, we’re out of business,” Colton says. “So we’re all about being sustainable and asking ourselves, ‘Are we contributing to the demise of a species not a lot is known about?’”

Like the nautical paintings and photographs on the walls—many of which come from the owner’s personal collection—each dish at Top of the Market has its own story. Because the ingredients change seasonally—you might be served Icelandic salmon in March and wild king salmon in May—dining at Top of the Market is almost an educational experience, teaching you about what’s being harvested both in the ocean and on land at various points in the year.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon we visited The Top of the Market. The weather had been mercurial that day, alternating between bouts of rain and moments of stillness, and just as we reached the top of the stairs and entered the restaurant, the sun broke through the clouds. I know this because Top of the Market has a full wall of windows revealing an outstanding view of the canal, Foster City, and a charming boathouse stacked with brightly colored kayaks. Since it was the pre-dinner-rush the restaurant we had a choice of where to sit. The bulk of diners, including one woman who was celebrating a birthday, had chosen to sit at the kitchen counter, and I debated between a booth or a table. In the end, location won out and a table by the windows because eating seafood while enjoying a view of the water seemed too good an experience to pass up.

We started with the Ahi Crudo, consisting of thick slabs of buttery tuna from the Philippines dressed in a refreshing avocado-yuzu puree. Sprinkled with an assortment of edible flowers, it came with chilis and a cucumber-quinoa relish that added a zesty crunch and a bit of spice to the dish. Next came the outstanding Gambas Al Ajillo Garlic Prawns featuring large, juicy shrimp from the Sea of Cortez a top a rusty-hued pool of garlic, lemon, sherry vinegar, and smoked paprika that would even have been great for an entrée if desired. The monolith of Jumbo Lump Crab Cake—formed in a mold and then grilled— was creamy and sweet at once, with a luscious streak of lemon crème fraiche on the bottom and a hint of crunch courtesy of breadcrumbs sprinkled on top, a must have if available on the menu.

The most popular entrée at Top of the Market is the Oregon Petrale sole, a complete and hearty meal replete with oven roasted marble potatoes, mushrooms, and asparagus, dressed in a lemon-caper beurre blanc sauce. Next we opted for the two next-most-popular dishes: the Grilled Farm-Raised Icelandic Salmon and the Sauteed Atlantic Sea Scallops. Top of the Market doesn’t skimp when it comes to portion sizes, and the salmon was so huge that we ended up taking half of it home with me. Dressed in a pomegranate gastrique that gave the fish a sharp, lively flavor, it came with a mélange of roasted vegetables, including squash, onions, and Brussels sprouts leaves.

Presentation is integral to each dish at Top of the Market and the scallops were no exception. Vibrant purple orchids and delicate slices of green apple came artfully arranged atop the pan-seared discs coated in a crumbly, cauliflower puree. As Colton told me earlier, “It’s more than a plate of food. We don’t just harvest the animals out of the ocean and put them on a plate.” Top of the Market’s scallops are dry, not dipped for preservation, and had a resilient tenderness to them as if they’d been plucked from the sea that very day.

For those less inclined to seafood, Top of the Market offers an assortment of alternatives like a Petite Filet Mignon and a pasta dish with prosciutto, English peas, and Romano cheese. The Fettucini E Porcini Funghi Con Saliccia is flavor-filled and robust, its long noodles coiled around perfectly sautéed porcini and maitaki mushrooms.

Usually with chocolate desserts, if you’ve had one, you’ve had them all, but that’s not true with Top of the Market’s Chocolate Ganache Cake, which is made in-house and drenched in devilishly sweet raspberry sauce. The Vanilla Cream and Mascarpone is creamy and thick like a cheesecake, but it also has a light and airy quality to it akin to eating a cloud.

Top of the Market has a full bar, as well as an extensive wine list. Oenophiles can enjoy the Duckhorn Chardonnay from Napa Valley or the restaurant’s longtime customer favorite, Rombauer Chardonnay. Those who prefer red wines have a bevy to choose from, with the most popular selections being the Migration Pinot Noir, Gary Farrell Pinot Noir, and the Flowers Pinot Noir.

Maybe it was the freshness and ingenuity of the food I’d just enjoyed, the Billie Holiday song playing in the background, or the resplendent blue of the formerly gloomy sky filling up the windows in front of me, but suddenly I felt imbued with a hopeful positivity from an amazing dining experience. Even though I was wearing sneakers and an aloha shirt, I somehow felt classier and more composed just by virtue of being in the restaurant. Of course, the glass of Rombauer Chardonnay I was sipping on didn’t hurt.