“Fresh is boring”: Fishmonger Liwei Liao reinterprets an ancient art

The fish at your favorite restaurant with its buttery texture and distinctive flavor may not be fresh – and that is intentional.

Fishmonger Liwei Liao carefully ages fish in climate-controlled refrigerators, extending shelf life by weeks and coaxing unique flavor from snapper, salmon, mackerel, branzino, tuna, sea bream and more. His fish appears on menus across the Southland — and the country — whether in tacos or on fine-dining tasting menus. It's sold through his Sherman Oaks market, the Joint Seafood, as well as a fast-growing wholesale offering that includes some of the world's most renowned chefs and restaurants. This challenges perceptions of the way fish is processed and served and helps eliminate food waste and spreads the Liao gospel: “Fresh is boring.”

“I always said I wanted to change the way fish is sold, but I never thought it would succeed on this scale,” Liao said.

A number of cultures have been aging and curing seafood for centuries, though Liao's techniques – inspired by the process you'd find at a high-end steakhouse – have certainly popularized the concept since he opened Joint Seafood in 2018. He currently supplies around 30 customers weekly, with another 60 to 70 accounts that buy less frequently.

Liao, 41, works with many of the city's big players, including the Sushi and Damian brothers. Local chain Granville recently began serving his aged branzino at its five locations, and Liao occasionally supplements the fish at Michael Cimarusti's two-Michelin-starred Providence, which now has its own dry-aging refrigerators on-site. Outside Los Angeles, celebrity chefs like Dominique Crenn call in custom orders for private dinners and events, while Nashville's Catbird Seat also counts itself among his clients. A new account at Station Casinos marks Liao's latest foray into Las Vegas.

Spec Fisheries, Liao's new high-capacity production center in Vernon, is set to open this fall; large aging chambers, as opposed to the Joint's smaller refrigerators, should help it process about 30,000 pounds of fish per week, compared to the 4,000 to 6,000 pounds Liao currently processes per week. A second Joint location—with 4,000 square feet of retail space and its own production of 10,000 pounds of fish processing per week—is set to open next year in the Arts District near Little Tokyo. With so much product expected, he has set his sights on eliminating food waste even further with a new hand-roll restaurant, Uoichiba. The fast-casual sushi counter serves its repurposed, dry-aged “cuttings”—high-quality leftovers—as tepeki and with miso bone broth soup in the food hall of the Citizen Public Market in Culver City, as well as at the Joint.

Next time you visit your favorite LA restaurant, look for “Dry Aged” on the menu—and then listen for the condensed, buttery texture and clean, distinct flavors. You’ll most likely have Liao to thank.