In opening Oystertown, Chef Philip Wojtowicz got what he—and the rest of us—wanted.

It’s a fine Sunday, the sun strolling toward noon. Guests sit at the chic concrete counter, scanning menus without hurry. 

Chef Philip Wojtowicz is the only contrast to this leisurely setting. He rushes from the kitchen to the prep station, then disappears again in constant motion.

This is what a soft opening looks like at Oystertown in Monterey. Three oysters are on offer on this day, Beau Soleil, Kusshi and Kumamoto, but there will be more. Wojtowicz is intent on rolling slowly into the groove. Yet he has practiced the concept—through popups, in his thoughts and briefly at a storefront—for some time.

“This is the oyster bar I talked about a couple of years ago,” the chef says during a brief lull.

Before Hops & Fog Brewing Co. and Pop and Hiss, a bar and music venue, brought downtown Pacific Grove roaring to life, there was Poppy Hall. The restaurant headed by Wojtowicz and Brendan Esons was bursting, lively to the point of being boisterous, and extraordinarily good.

The chef brought oysters to the menu. Even as people crowded into the restaurant, he yearned for an oyster bar.

“There was a need for it,” Wojtowicz explains.

Oysters come raw with a mignonette that changes with the season, baked or dressed—as in a Kumamoto from Humboldt Bay on a bed of cucumber-apple granite, topped with a delicate sliver of scallop and a flower of caviar. 

Here the chef is playing with the complementary contrast of natural sensations of sweet and salt. Yet there are other elements that stray casually but purposefully over the palate—a chill nip of tartness, a wavering notion of grass, a faint earthen must. And all the while that fresh yen and yang of ripe fruit and open sea.

But Oystertown is more than a raw bar. There is a shrimp cocktail, of course, and steamed mussels. But the menu beckons like favorites picked from a trove of family recipes—carrot-ginger soup, ravioli, banana pudding.

The “super meaty” meatballs are made from a mixture of beef and pork in a sauce learned from grandma. Somewhere in the lineage, there was some sleight of hand involved, otherwise how does a chef shrink so much meat into such tidy packages? 

The meatballs are dense without becoming weighty. There is a brawn to them, but also a mellow calm. They don’t require the assistance of a sauce, but there it is, a wonder unto itself. Again the chef laces the bright, flitting spirit of fruit—it’s a tomato base—through a more stolid, grounded savor. 

There is a meatiness to the sauce. But in this he conjures a flickering heat.

It’s easy in this handsome, casual setting to want to order more, such as the shrimp cocktail. An easy thing. After all, good shrimp are just that—a subdued sweetness, a fusty tug. 

Or so you thought. The tell is in the sauce—in this case an elusive chortle of horseradish ducking behind a brisk, fruity veil.

“It’s our take on a cocktail sauce,” chef says. “At popups people were eating it with a spoon.”

Wojtowicz came prepared for Oystertown. Before he was forced to close Poppy Hall, the chef had added a raw bar. And for the last two years he held special nights at different locations. 

Shellfish would be the focus of each outing, but he always prepared other options. And talk of those rippled through social media.

Oystertown fills the old Lilify location on Lighthouse. And Wojtowicz is considering adding a coffee bar to appease its former regulars. Also on the horizon are oyster tastings and perhaps a broader menu.

For its soft opening, Wojtowicz set weekend hours. But Oystertown will soon add to this schedule.

“It’s just me in the kitchen,” he says. “We will expand.”

There is, however, enough at Oystertown now to leave one spellbound. What other restaurant, for example, puts an ice cream sandwich—made in house—on the dessert menu?

The Buena Vista is inspired by the San Francisco spot known for its Irish coffee. It’s a no-churn ice cream reflecting the flavors of tiramisu and too daunting to hold by hand, since it is drizzled with a caramel sauce that sticks in one’s memory. There is a nuzzle of rich cream, a murmur of smoke and more.

It’s easy to become lost in the whiskey caramel, in the cocktail sauce, in any of the little details not overlooked at Oystertown. If this is the oyster bar Wojtowicz conceived of three years ago, it has been well worth the wait.

Oystertown is at 281 Lighthouse Ave., Monterey. oystertownusa.com.