Fish Story: Into the Kitchen with Above's Fred Mero

It was all about the fish for Fred Mero on a recent Tues. morning. The new Chef de Cuisine at Above Restaurant paused while giving this visitor a tour of the kitchen. The day's catch had arrived, and Mero glanced at an invoice before studying each fish from head to scaly tail. He knelt down to better study a large portion of swordfish. "Tonight's special," he said, checking the texture of the skin. The fish would be blackened in the brick oven and served the same evening.

Mero's newest menu debuted this week, offering diners a culinary resume of the chef's long career in food. A native of Ecuador, who immigrated to New York as a child, Mero's first cooking teacher was his mother. He completed the Culinary Arts program at the Brooklyn Technical College before becoming sous chef at Manhattan's Harvard Club. He later helped establish the Trustees' Dining Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, before joining the staff at the Four Seasons.

New to South Orange and Above, Mero describes the experience as "an adventure." He is committed to fresh and local ingredients, so local that he grows his own herbs on the restaurant patio. He has ambitious plans for the newest acquisition, a fig tree, which may see its fruit become dessert next season.

Mero's priorities when he sets a menu are fresh, seasonal ingredients, such as the heirloom tomatoes on a kitchen counter that are destined to become gazpacho. Fortunately, he says, Eden Gourmet makes obtaining that must-have ingredient easy and convenient. "We just run downstairs," he explains, "when we need something." He's especially impressed with the cheese selections at Eden Gourmet which he says are "as good or better" as any market or cheese shop he has visited in Manhattan.

Looking around Above, Mero sees the restaurant's European leanings.  He seeks to make the restaurant elegant but inviting, innovative and a place where diners can return for favorite dishes. There is, he notes, a bar menu. He has found that some diners come to watch sports in the bar, and are looking for a more casual meal. Others seek the full dining experience, "which we have," says Mero. There is a lunch menu, with items than range from pizza to roasted capon, and a prix fixe brunch option.

The new menu is true to Mero's leanings and to the cooking he first learned from his mother. In addition to duck, rib-eye steaks, and veal, the menu offers seafood in many styles. The tuna mignon and, at lunchtime, the tuna burger, have been popular additions to the menu already.  And for the bolder palate, house-cured salmon gravlax and marinated octopus beckon.

The fall will bring new entrees and specials to Above. For now, though, Mero shows this visitor the walk-in, where Connecticut, Long Island and Canadian oysters wait. Next stop is the brick oven, which reaches 1000 degrees F. "It's a beautiful place," Mero says of the restaurant. He gestures at the mosaic on one wall. "Both the part you see," he says, and, as he is called back into the kitchen, "the part that I see, too."