On April 7th, I finally dined at Two Fish in Medford Lakes. I had made reservations back in November for a date in January, which I had to cancel for Covid reasons, and this was the earliest date thereafter we could get. It’s the hottest ticket in town, for good reason.

Occupying space that used to be a travel agency (where I booked my first airplane ticket back in the 1980s), Chef Michael Stollenwerk and Felice Liebowitz have brightened the log cabin into a modern scandinavian space with several tables downstairs and one large table upstairs (for a chef’s tasting menu for 4-6 people).

The menu is all fish, and our foursome ended up ordering one of everything on the menu that evening. To pair with the fish-centric menu, we brought two bottles: a sparkling wine and a rosé. 

We almost always start with a sparkling wine. It pairs well with anything, and starts the evening with a celebratory mood. The Els Vinyerons Vins Natural Lluerna (“firefly” in Catalan) is a certified organic wine from the Penedes wine region in Catalonia, Spain. The growers and winemakers, Amós Bañeres Merinero & Alex Ruiz Masachs, describe their wine philosophy thusly: “Spontaneous yeasts, minimum intervention, no enological products, let the wine go their own way!” Citrus and floral aromas, with minerality, salinity, and higher acidity on the palate make for a refreshing sparkling wine.

100% Xarel·lo (one of the three main grapes used to make Cava) grapes were hand-harvested, gently pressed, and fermented with indigenous yeasts. 90% of the wine was from the 2019 vintage, and 10% from the 2018 vintage, which had been aged one year in French oak. No sulfur was added; it just contains the natural sulfites the grapes produce. 12% ABV. Found at West Deptford Buy-Rite for $19.

The rosé was a 2020 rosé of Pinot Noir by Colene Clemens Vineyards, Willamette Valley, Oregon. This light pink wine, with strawberry on the nose and palate, paired well with the salmon and tuna dishes. One-third of the grapes were destemmed and put into a stainless steel tank to sit on its skins for 12-18 hours, then added to the other two-thirds grapes, which were gently pressed and added to the tank to cold ferment for one month. Unfortunately, this bottle was hand-carried from the winery in Newburg, Oregon, and I have not been able to source it locally. $22 at the Winery.

I hope that you also get to spend a sublime evening at Two Fish BYOB!