Roll’em Up: At Desposito’s No Sleeve is Safe
Certain things come to mind when you hear the words “Savannah, Georgia”: hanging oaks with Spanish moss just dripping from majestic branches, preserved city squares that are bustling and lush existing identically as they did a century ago, and perhaps a rolling drawl crawling from the lips of a gray-haired local in a seersucker suit. This charming, Southern, picturesque postcard-y Savannah can definitely be found here, but that’s not where we’re going tonight.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for a nice night on the town with a blazer and a nice pair of jeans, but there is something to be said about a cold cinderblock building with the glowing hum of neon beer signs. In a city where there are plenty of heavily praised dining establishments to choose from, I am consistently more likely to dive into a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that has survived since the mid-‘60s than the newest hot spot.
Desposito’s sits about twenty yards from a modest boat ramp on the Wilmington River in Thunderbolt, a municipality of the greater Savannah area. Across the dark ripples of the sound, I can see the glow of the house that I grew up in. To say that Desposito’s is a family staple would be an understatement. As a kid, I spent many a summer’s night eating seafood caught right out on the water surrounding this restaurant. Simply put, for me, this tastes like home. My dad’s favorite food is shrimp, and he will take it any way you cook it – shrimp salad, shrimp stew, fried shrimp, sautéed shrimp, shrimp gumbo; you get the picture. So, from a man this keen on the subject, you can take his word on it when he says, “They got the best ‘bawled’ shrimp in the world.”
Pictured: best bawled shrimp in the world
Living in Savannah for a quarter century has taught me the most important commandment in the Torah of the 912 area code: There is no other seafood above ours. Our shrimp are semisweet and briny; they have a buttery, meaty lobster-like texture without being tough or stringent. I’m going to let you in on a little secret, there’s something that the tri-fold brochures in the fancy hotels downtown aren’t telling yall, it is surprisingly hard to find seafood that isn’t fried to a greasy crisp in Savannah, Georgia. There is no greater sin in the world, and I have witnessed this happen, than taking a gorgeous fresh catch right off the back of a 60’ Hatteras, filleting it on the dock before taking it right into the back of the restaurant, and deep frying the ever-loving hell out of it. God forgive them. It makes me cringe just thinking about it.
Desposito’s feels my pain. They respect the inherent quality of the indigenous creatures and in doing so they are one of the only a few seafood restaurants in the Savannah area that fully utilizes the natural flavor that the creatures found in our salty brackish water contain. The native waters of the animals mean everything to the taste of the meat. By using sparse seasoning, Desposito’s is able to reveal the semisweet briny flavor found naturally within the shrimp. That’s something you just won’t find in a restaurant serving deep-fried shrimp.
Fresh, simple shrimp salad served up with classic corn on the cob.
What’s more important than the medium used to cook their food is the amount of time and temperature that Desposito’s uses to get maximum moisture and texture from their meat. There is nothing worse than opening an oyster and seeing a shriveled lump of ruined delicacy nestled around the thick and ever-present adductor muscle. You won’t find overcooked or over-seasoned food at Desposito’s. They get all the little details just right.
My fiancée working the tablecloth crossword.
If it’s fancy drinks and ambience you’re after, you won’t find that here. Desposito’s alcohol list consists of domestic beer and wine that comes in “the big bottles.” It’s an all too often occurrence in the current culinary climate to be overloaded with highfalutin’ choices. It’s homemade bitters this and single source small batch that. While I agree there is a time and a place for those things, and I would readily admit that I have been known to kick back a few such drinks, a simple well thought out menu will never go out of style.
This is naturalist cuisine at its finest. The tables are lined with old issues of the Savannah Morning News, whose publisher lives about a quarter mile up the river from the restaurant and occasionally you’ll catch him in here tearing into one such roll-up-your-sleeves type of meal. Although the cinderblock walls with years of paint chipping away seem like you’re in a summer camp dining hall rather than a restaurant, the overall aura of it is gritty charisma wafting with the smell of marshland and crustaceans. So, if you ever find yourself looking for an authentic Savannah night out, look no further than Desposito’s.
