Fire and fin: New owners add seafood at downtown pizzeria

Passers-by still stop and stare and point.

At the very least, it’s a conversation starter.

There’s fish at Fire.

Right in the front window.

The downtown restaurant, known for its wood-fired pizza and minimalist modern design, recently added shellfish, sushi and other seafood to its menu. And it’s creating quite a buzz.

“A lot of people walking down the street, they stop,” said chef Haru Wong, one of the partners in the pizza place. “A lot of people are asking.”

Fire isn’t just for pizza anymore. Now there’s an assortment of grilled seafood, sushi rolls and other presentations of raw fish, including pressed-rice open-face “sandwiches.”

Fire’s original staple – pizza – remains on the menu. But there are now more sushi and seafood options than pizza pies. There’s even the unexpected hybrid on the newly expanded menu: poke pizza.

It features four kinds of raw fish – blue fin tuna, salmon, albacore and white fish – mixed with olive oil, sea salt, eel sauce, ponzu sauce, Sriracha sauce, cilantro, cucumber and avocado. That mixture is placed atop a pizza crust with a little melted cheese and Wong’s special sauce. Ingredients are secret.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, noting business at Fire has been picking up since the addition of seafood. Word is still getting out.

“I want people to know,” he said. “I want to show to Spokane people the new style, the fresh food, the fresh seafood.”

Wong, 55, has been a chef for 35 years, learning to cook in his native Japan. He came to the U.S. from Tokyo in 1992 to open a restaurant in California with the help of an uncle. About a year ago, he became a partner in the downtown Spokane location of Fire. He moved here about six months ago with his wife, Mei Huang, 46, who also works at Fire, from San Gabriel, California, to help run it.

His business partner, Jinjou Sun, also owns Nudo next door as well as the Nudo location in north Spokane. Wong said he’s known her since 1996 and traveled to Spokane from California to help her open the ramen restaurant. He also said they bought the downtown Fire location last year. Two other Fire locations, in Coeur d’Alene and Great Falls, remain under original ownership.

Spokane’s Fire opened in 2013 about two years after the original Coeur d’Alene location opened. Montana’s Fire opened last year.

Wong said he is also a partner in the forthcoming Umi restaurant, slated to open soon in Kendall Yards. Plans for that place call for sushi as well as a tank stocked with sea urchins, lobster, king crag, halibut. It won’t have pizza, though, he said, adding, “of course,” the pizza at Fire “is very good.”

There’s the salty-sweet Gordy with gorgonzola, mozzarella, provolone, dates and balsamic reduction. And there’s the Honey Badger with rosemary, red chili flakes, gorgonzola, pecorino, Italian salami and honey. The Thai is another favorite with sweet chili sauce, mozzarella, provolone, serrano peppers, chicken, green onions, cashews, cilantro and Sriracha.

These days lunch specials, which include a personal-size pizza, also come with a pressed-rice sandwich or seaweed salad and crudo, or Italian-style raw fish. Choose from kanpachi, salmon, sea bass, white fish and albacore.

Crudo also comes in entree-sized portions. Look for a mixed plate with shiso leaf, capers, olive oil and sea salt as well as one style of fish – sea bass, white fish, jumbo scallops, albacore, kanpachi, bluefin tuna, salmon – with different dressings and seasonings. Beef carpaccio is available, too. So is poke without the pizza. The poke salad comes with avocado, mixed greens and a sesame-yuzo dressing.

Look, also, for California, spicy tuna, Philadelphia, surf clam, summer and shrimp tempura rolls – among others. Consider the volcano roll, which features spicy tuna, cucumber, crab and albacore and comes to the table in a way that pays homage to the establishment’s name: on fire. Wong uses Don Q 151 to ignite the roll, and the presentation is impressive.

Or, impress people by ordering the lobster roll. It comes with eight pieces topped with lobster and a rich and creamy – and gently spicy – sauce. The empty red lobster shell perches across the top, making for a dramatic presentation.

It’s a top-seller so far, along with several others.

“Dragon roll, spider roll, we sell a lot,” Wong said. “And the Spokane roll, we sell a lot. It is very spicy and very hot.”

The dragon roll comes with eel, avocado and eel sauce. The red dragon roll comes with shrimp tempura, crab, cucumber, fresh tuna, avocado, scallion, eel sauce and aioli.

The spider roll comes with soft shell blue crab, Cajun seasoning, cucumber, avocado and eel sauce.

And the Spokane roll features spicy tuna with cucumber, sliced serrano peppers, eel sauce and aioli.

It’s not all raw. Guests can select fish and shellfish by the piece from Fire’s new seafood bar, stocked with ice and topped with the day’s selection. The stall sits just inside the front door, overlooking the sidewalk on West Sprague Avenue.

No need to ask: how much is that rockfish in the window? Market prices – generally $14 to $22 per piece – are listed on small signs stuck in the ice. There’s striped sea bass, too – and trout and lobster.

On a recent visit, king crab was $29 per pound and oysters were $2.50 each. Consider starting with a few. They come on the half shell either cooked with butter, garlic and Wong’s special sauce or raw with lemon, sea salt and ponzu sauce.

Select a fish to be cooked to order with assorted vegetables. Customers can choose from four different sauces: cream, sweet and sour, green tea with bay leaf, and the delicate and gently spicy orange-colored Thai.

Or, opt for a simple and traditional preparation of sea salt and pepper.