Henlopen City Oyster House opens

Open less than two weeks, Henlopen City Oyster House already looks like the newest pearl in Rehoboth Beach’s vibrant restaurant scene.

Founded by Rehoboth restaurant veterans Chris Bisaha and Joe Baker, Henlopen City Oyster House is a raw oyster bar and seafood restaurant with a name from Rehoboth’s past.

“The town was named Henlopen City for about two years back in the 1890s,” Baker said. “I thought that was pretty cool that the area had a different name and we wanted to highlight that for our new restaurant.”

The other half of the name references the restaurant’s specialty: oysters.

“We both love oysters, and we think a raw bar goes good in any area,” Baker said.

Bisaha said, “We do a four-seat raw bar. Six to eight oysters a night, clams, we might do live scallops sometimes. And we offer them from all over the place: East Coast, West Coast. Endless varieties.”

“We want to do it right out in front of you, so you can actually watch the process. It’s like a little bit of a show,” Baker said.

Bisaha said the restaurant also serves fresh seafood items and American fare such as burgers and steaks. The restaurant serves four fish a night, including tuna, halibut and sockeye salmon.

“We do all kinds of rotations with our fish as well,” Bisaha said.

There are also soft-shell crabs and fried chicken, and Bisaha said in the fall the restaurant would have a whole pig available. He said in the offseason there would be more of a focus on meats, while in the summer the focus is more on seafood.

Another big attraction is the cask ale, or beer engine, in the bar. In cask ale, the beer has not had any filtration or pasteurization and there is no additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure added, like in a beer keg. The beer is served from a traditional hand pump into the glass. There is no gas in the pump system and it takes four draws to fill up a pint glass. Baker said it is one of only three cask ales in the state.

“Dogfish Head has one, and they only do their own beer, and there’s another one upstate. That’s it. It’s just a different way to do beer,” Baker said.

The beer from the cask ale has a different profile from regular keg beer because of the unusual fermentation process involved. Baker and Bisaha said Henlopen City Oyster House would use the cask to showcase local beers such as Evolution and Dogfish Head.

Henlopen City Oyster House is at 50 Wilmington Ave. in the space formerly occupied by Celsius.

The restaurant is going to open only for dinner through the summer but will begin serving lunch Oct. 1.

Henlopen City Oyster House is open seven days a week. The bar opens at 4 p.m. and dinner service begins at 4:30 p.m.