REVIEW

Robert Anthony is a Yachats-based fisherman. He owns the F/V Liberty II and uses it to fish for halibut, crab, salmon, and albacore. You can eat the creatures he catches at his tiny restaurant on Highway 101 in Yachats, across the street from the Green Salmon coffeehouse, or stop by to pick up the raw ingredients if you prefer to do the cooking yourself.

The fish and chips combo includes halibut, albacore, and wild king salmon, all species you’d never see fried on the east coast. We could never get over how spectacularly good the local wild salmon tastes after it emerges from its oil bath.

There’s more on the menu, and in the seafood case, than what he catches himself, but none of it is farmed, and all of it was recently swimming. An order of mixed fish and chips showcases the distinct differences between the big three of Oregon: halibut is snowy white, mild, and sweet, albacore is meaty and juicy, and wild king salmon, the star of the show, is rich with fish oil and fills the mouth with flavor.

We ordered a salad topped with grilled ling cod but received one topped with grilled albacore, which was fine. After years of eating tuna either raw or seared and raw in the center, it is fascinating to taste it cooked all the way through as is done all over the Oregon coast. Yes, there is some of that familiar, meaty Chicken-of-the-Sea texture, but the juiciness and clean flavors are a revelation.

Order a crab cocktail and you get a cup of nothing but large, pristine chunks of fresh Dungeness, cocktail sauce and lemon on the side. There is none better on the coast. As in all seafood restaurants in these parts, you can get chowder or slumgullion, but their slumgullion is fortified with “white cheeses,” and the chowder, idiosyncratically for these parts, comes in what they call Manhattan or New England style.

You’d have to be crazy to travel the central Oregon Coast and bypass Luna Sea.

They are open for breakfast. Eggs are organic, and we’d love to return and sample some salmon hash or a Luna Sea omelet stuffed with halibut, scallops, and bay shrimp, along with cheese, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and topped with cheese sauce. Whew!

We don’t know if this is Luna Sea’s usual crowd, but the evening we were there the place had a definite ’60s unreconstructed aging counterculture clientele. In fact, we got that sense elsewhere, but not everywhere, in the town of Yachats. Is this where they all went, or were they just in town the same time we were? They sure did seem like locals. It was odd and a little reassuring: so they didn’t all become hedge fund managers and corporate attorneys!

Anyway, back to Luna Sea: they can their wild Chinook salmon and tuna, and have their fish smoked for them, and you can purchase these products at the restaurant or by mail. If you decide to eat in, be prepared to wait for a table. Luna Sea is very popular and they have limited seating. Prices are reasonable, as are portion sizes. Service is casual. Quality is supreme.

LAF TRAK: 

FOOD: 

BEST THING TO EAT: Crab cocktail