Blueacre Seafood is in the immense space at the corner of Seventh and Olive where the Oceanaire Seafood Room used to be. Oceanaire, you may recall if you had money spilling out of your pockets in the aught-aughts, was part of a fancy seafood chain out of Minneapolis, and its interior resembled a luxurious old-fashioned ocean liner: wood polished to the finest shine, shipshape silver hither and yon, leather booths, black-tied servers. It never crossed the line into ostentation (and it all made the acoustical-tile ceiling with all its sprinklers easy to ignore; why would you look up?). The menu—freshly minted every day and longer than your bespoke-suited arm—offered a dumbfounding number of options, the most impressive of which was the Grand Shellfish Platter, a monolithic tower of oysters on the half shell, crab legs, lobster claws, prawns, and their assorted friends.

The Grand Shellfish Platter cost approximately $157 and was arguably worth it—at least when Kevin Davis was the chef...

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