SF’s Best New Seafood Eatery is a Counter-Service Market: Nopa Fish
Chef/owners of iconic Nopa branch out with a seafood stall in SF's Ferry Building
Chef Laurence Jossel and Holly Rhodes’ Nopa is an SF institution since 2006, still packed nightly, a tough seat to snag. It has remained quality, from food to wine and cocktails, for almost 20 years. So there was no question Nopa Fish, which opened June 17, 2025, would be a priority as it debuted in the Ferry Building from Jossel, Rhodes and Water2Table owner Joe Conte.
I wasn’t disappointed. Under the Ferry Building's towering hall,Nopa Fish is casual counter service with a few tables to eat in and a take-home fish market featuring traceable, locally caught, sustainable and ethically sourced fish Water2Table is known for from the best local sources. It’s also a damn great seafood restaurant, an easy quick stop in the Marketplace.
Standout Dishes: Everything I had. Seriously. Fish and specials rotate daily, but from the first bite of Jossel’s smoked rainbow trout, corn and shellfish chowder, aromatic with fish tails instead of bacon — or the same house-smoked McFarland Springs trout on latkes — you know we have yet another superb SF seafood eatery here. It’s fitting in a city with such rich seafood history and culture as ours since the 1800s when San Francisco immigrants invented iconic seafood dishes like the Crab Louis and cioppino.
Ferry Building neighbor (and formerly-known-as Gourmet Ghetto bread legend) Acme Bread Company is custom-making sandwich bread in partnership with chef Jossel, including Japanese milk bread and milk bread buns.
Shrimp, rice and basil pesto arancini are good (though I have preferred favorites in town like at Mattina), but a hefty smoked albacore melt of wild Pacific albacore tuna salad, loaded with caraway sauerkraut, gruyere or cheddar (or both) cheeses and Russian dressing on toasted Acme sourdough bread is my sleeper hit dish, a sandwich I was craving as soon as I finished it.
“Pristine fish over sushi rice” is another hit, an ever-changing chirashi box showcasing raw fish fresh that day, like local halibut, over Luna koshihikari organic rice grown in the Sacramento Delta, with pickled ginger and red onions, sous vide egg and assorted market greens, cucumber and avocado.
The fish ’n’ chips echoes Nopa’s beloved fried chicken in a ras el hanout spice mix over cumin-dusted Kennebec fries with harissa aioli. There’s an organic tofu vegetarian version of their fried rockfish sandwich and lovely seasonal salads, like a summer salad I loved of organic little gems, sheep’s milk feta, nectarines, blackberries and almonds in honey balsamic vinaigrette.
Nopa Fish is reasonably-priced excellence and a notable newcomer in a city chock-full of notable seafood eateries and restaurants, both historic and newer.
Caveats: Nopa Fish is closed Sundays, early in the evenings and drink options are minimal. But it’s an order-at-the-counter stall in a marketplace, so expected.
Drink: Besides lemonade, tea, Arnold Palmers and strawberry limeades, there is one white, one rosé and one chilled red by the glass, all quality and flowing freely, like Les Lunes’ mineral-driven Chardonnay from nearby Mendocino.
// 1 Ferry Building, Suite 31, Embarcadero, SF; www.nopafish.com