Oh me, oh mahi: Little Fish’s pan-seared mahi-mahi will warm you up and keep you going when the temperature drops (photo by michael persico).

Reason With the Season

Little Fish calms stubborn seafood cravings.

This is the time of year I start dreaming about summer, and with it, seafood. Don’t our be-finned friends just seem to taste better with the sun on your neck and a crisp, brash pilsner in hand? Unfortunately, those perfect, sand-in-your-toes-but-not-in-the-steamers seafood moments remain in storage, but a recent visit to Queen Village’s Little Fish proves that even in the single digits seafood can be delightful.

The mahi-mahi, pan-seared and posed over silky sweet potato puree and an aurora of madras curry, proved as valuable in Fridgidelphia as all-weather tires. Meaty and satisfying, it was cold-weather food in a deceptive package, those warm, fragrant currents of curry reigniting my inner pilot light.

This kind of creative, calendar-correct cooking is what recently landed Little Fish on Bon Appetit’s black book of the country’s top seafood spots. Congrats are in order to chef/owner Mike Stollenwerk—or curmudgeonly grumblings, since it’s tougher than ever to score one of the matchbox-sized bistro’s 22 seats. Reservations for Sunday nights, when Stollenwork offers a $28 five-course prix-fixe, book a month in advance.

An Ocean City native, Stollenwerk first nurtured a passion for fish as the sous at Cape May’s storied Washington Inn, then as co-owner and co-chef of Café Loren in Avalon. After selling out to his partner, he relocated to Philly, finding work at Avenue B and Davio’s before happening upon the original Little Fish.

He and his wife, Marilyn, held their engagement dinner there, and the pieces quickly fell into place: Marilyn, looking for part-time work as a waitress. Little Fish’s beleaguered chef/owner, looking for an out. Stollenwerk, ready to go solo.

By the time Stollenwerk relaunched Little Fish on New Year’s Day 2007, little of the original remained. One exception: the Argentine chimichurri, a bright, grassy blend of fresh oregano, parsley and extra-virgin that the former chef used as a seafood sauce. In v. 2.0, it’s the butter to the warm, chewy Faragalli’s rolls.

I’d tell you to ask for more bread to dunk into the plump, cilantro-speckled mussels’ mellow coconut-and-Penang curry broth, but the intuitive staff will already have beaten me to it.

Those mussels hail from Canada, as do the briny Little Shemogue oysters that, less than 48 hours before, were chilling in New Brunswick’s Northumberland Strait. Stollenwerk sources the rest of the seafood prepared on the single six-burner stove—the open-galley kitchen has no fryer and no grill—from various purveyors.

Locally, Trenton’s P&G Trading brings the scallops; Samuel & Son the big orders of striper, snapper and the peekytoe Maine crabmeat that, in one haunting appetizer, wowed with warm butter, ruby red grapefruit and tarragon confetti.

Boutique specimens are the booty of treks to Manhattan fishmonger F. Rozzo & Sons. Stollenwerk does the drive at 5 a.m., as the dawn breaks over the Jersey Turnpike.

Fish is delivered every day, making for menus that embody what’s fresh and what’s available. You can almost always expect Atlantic skate, a perennial fave with the Little Fish acolytes. On the night of my visit, the delicate boatsail-shaped wings landed with pebble-sized black truffle spaetzle and a slow-cooked scoop of melted leeks.

The skate’s long, scalloped striations and the spaetzle’s gnocchi-like grooves were like rain catchers for the droplets of rich parmesan broth made with leftover Reggiano rinds, chicken stock and three hours on a low flame. Screw what your Italian grandma says about cheese and fish; I’ve never had a seafood dish quite so satisfying.

Desserts brought big flavors in small packages. The nooks and crannies of the bread pudding (made with Stollenwerk’s mom’s pumpkin bread) hid cinnamon-and-vanilla-poached raisins. Wee wedges of black plum sous-vide with lemon and Sauternes accentuated the decadent dark chocolate ganache cake with subtle acidity.

It’s four months till May, but with Little Fish warming a South Philly corner, I’m not in such a rush.