Sealed, numbered and signed by the hand that made it.
THE SEA
Grey mullet roe, salt-pressed and air-dried five months. Grated, not sliced.
$72
Bottarga is very likely the oldest luxury food still made the same way. The word descends from the Arabic butarkhah, itself from the Coptic and ultimately the Greek ōotarichon — salted roe. Phoenician traders carried it across the Mediterranean; the Egyptians were pressing mullet roe at least three thousand years ago, and tomb paintings at Thebes show the process.
Sardinia's lagoon at Cabras became its most famous home because the water there is brackish, shallow and rich in the exact conditions grey mullet spawn in. The technique never industrialised — pressing and drying roe is still a matter of a person's judgement about humidity.
Bottarga is the signature of Sardinian cooking and of restaurants like Il Caminetto in Cabras. It crossed into international fine dining through chefs like Fulvio Pierangelini, whose austere Tuscan cooking at Gambero Rosso made single perfect ingredients the point, and it is now a fixture from Rome's Roscioli to Los Angeles' Bestia.
The weights are graduated: light for the first two days, heavier every day after. Press too hard too early and the sac bursts; too gently and the centre stays wet and will sour by month three.
We wax only the cut ends. A fully waxed lobe stops losing water and turns rubbery — the reason so much supermarket bottarga is disappointing.
Salt press, then air dry
5 months
Grated over hot pasta with oil and lemon, off the heat. Never cooked.
Every defining ingredient, named: who grew or caught it, where, when it was taken, what it has meant to the people who kept it, and what it does for you.
August–September 2025 run
Raked July 2025
Nutrition figures are typical values for the ingredient itself and are given as a guide, not as a dietary claim. Harvest dates refer to the batch printed on your lid.
