Shuck, K-town's new oyster bar, keeps it classy

A half dozen oysters and a glass of Spanish wine make an appetizing display at Shuck Raw Bar and Ale. matt ward/special to knoxville.com

The North Gay Street renovations were under way in the summer of 2009 when I made my move from the Carolina coast to Knoxville. I kept up with the progress of the rejuvenation projects of Downtown Knoxville through various links to articles I found in my Twitter feed. As the years progressed I was quite impressed with increased nightlife offerings continuously popping up downtown. The one thing I longed for, however, was fresh oysters. Carolina Beach, N.C., was where I called home prior to Knoxville. Fresh local oysters were available from November until March every year there. Needless to say it was time for my fix.

I found a tweet mentioning a new venture by the owners of Nama Sushi in the old Nama location called Shuck Raw Bar & Ale. This sounded like a perfect spot for a freezing cold January night.

As I drove up I noticed a poor soul standing out fully bundled up in the cold providing valet service from the restaurants on the block. As the "thrifty" soul that I am, I continued past and parked in a free space up on the bridge. I headed down the sidewalk and made my way to Shuck. As I walked in I was greeted promptly. I introduced myself to the hostess and she directed me to the manager, Andrew. He suggested I have a seat at the bar, and made some suggestions for wine and food. I thanked him and settled in. As Daft Punk played over the sound system, I took in the classiness of the spot's atmosphere. A mermaid was perched on a dividing wall in the back of the room to accent the minimalist nautical theme.

Shuck consists of a long bar with booths along the right-hand wall. Each window had a table with a few seats... Essentially the same layout from when it used to be Nama Sushi from what I could remember from my one visit there.

The small kitchen was a flurry of shucking and jiving as order after delicious order of half-shelled delights were particularly posed on plates. At this point, I had been asked a few times if I was going to eat and really thought nothing of it. Of course I was going to eat! I had not been in a place with more then one option of oysters since leaving the beach. I needed to find an oyster that had just enough of that briney flavor to make my spirit happy. Nevermind the aphrodisiac qualities as I just recently had a child, so that was not something that could prove to be helpful me. Anyway, oysters have never really affected me that way. Mostly because women have always become temporarily uninterested in me after they see me slurp a dozen raw ones riding down my gullet on a cracker.

I ordered a glass of wine from the bartender and she sat a menu down for me to take a look at. I ordered up a half-dozen after seeing "market price" listed on the menu. Later, I would learn that market price at the beach and market price 500 miles from it are two very, very different numbers. I will just say that my eyes were bigger then my wallet.

I ordered some wine and patiently waited for it to be uncorked and delivered to the glass that had already been sitting at my spot at the bar with elegant place setting before I even arrived. In fact, upon first walking in I wondered if I was in the wrong place. By wrong place, I meant for my level of class and my budget. Most places I can afford to grub have Styrofoam cups and should be accompanied by warnings from the surgeon general.

So for almost two hours I pretended I had a ninth floor three bedroom condo overlooking downtown Knoxville. I slowly sipped at my Spanish wine allowing myself to think about the yacht ride I would be taking once football season came back around. I snapped out of my affluent daydream at night when I was engaged by the gentlemen sitting to my left.

His name was Joe Norskov. He had just gotten off his shift there at Shuck and was enjoying some food and Steve Martin's book "An Object of Beauty." We spoke about topics ranging from my sadly limited knowledge of Martin's writings to the understanding of theology. This all just helped me feel once again more cultured and drifting back to my make-believe life as a Knoxville mover and shaker.

I finished the rest of my wine and asked for my tab. What a classy evening. Now it was time to go back to changing diapers and trading pink eye with my child. Oh, the life.

© 2012, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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