Seafood Supplier Has Top U.S. Restaurants Hooked : Dining: Rod Mitchell has played a big part in getting elite eateries to switch from frozen to fresh and exotic fare.

Before Rod Mitchell, America’s top chefs had to make do when it came to seafood. It wasn’t always fresh, and it certainly wasn’t exotic.

Jean-Louis Palladin, one of the nation’s most prominent chefs and owner of Jean-Louis at the Watergate in Washington, recalls that when he first arrived in the United States, everything was “fresh frozen.”

“Twice a week I got a plane coming in from Paris,” he said. “I had to buy fish from Paris and I didn’t want to do that because this country can have the best product in the world.”

Then Palladin met Mitchell.

The two became acquainted while vacationing about 15 years ago. Mitchell was running a gourmet shop selling wines, cheese and caviar. The chef had an idea. He asked Mitchell to supply hand-picked scallops and fresh fish for his four-star restaurant in Washington.

Mitchell agreed and was soon on the road to becoming the seafood supplier to America’s top restaurants.

Mitchell initially ran his business from the back of a pickup truck driving from Rockland, in coastal Maine, to Boston, buying fish and shipping it along the way. Now the 39-year-old runs a multimillion-dollar operation, Browne Trading Co., from a brick building on the Portland waterfront.

Relying on Federal Express, Mitchell provides seafood to 150 restaurants--with distributors in Atlanta and Denver--but still deals directly with the top 20 or 30 establishments.

His client list is filled with renowned chefs. Wolfgang Puck in California depends on him, as does Daniel Boulud of Daniel’s in New York. Other clients include the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta, Jasper’s in Boston and Lespinasse and Le Bernadin in New York.

“We are dealing with the elite of the elite,” says Mitchell, dressed casually in jeans with a baseball cap as he headed to the Portland Fish Auction. “We’ve changed the fish industry. Nobody else does it as well.”

His customers agree.

“I could buy much cheaper in New York, but it would not be the best,” said Boulud. “For the freshest and the best, he’s the man.”

Wholesale prices at Browne Trading vary, with some on par with other wholesale fish suppliers. Other prices are higher.

Maine salmon goes for $3.50 a pound. Eight gallons of hand-harvested jumbo Maine scallops are $97.60. The Russian beluga caviar is $37.50 an ounce.

“I’m only looking for the perfect fish,” Mitchell said as he handled a recently caught salmon. Salmon, he explained, should be stiff and not soft. In a cod you have to “look at the eyes.” Scallops: Flick them with your finger and if they move, they’re fresh.

Don’t keep lobster in tanks, he warned. Use shaved ice with fish to prevent bruising.

And, he added, “never ever trust anyone in the seafood business.” Mitchell says he’s as picky about suppliers as he is about fish.

For example, a woman in Owls Head, about 80 miles up the coast from Portland, is his sole supplier of fresh crab meat. He only trusts a former chef turned fishmonger to ship him exotic seafood from Hawaii. And Mitchell had to travel to Russia to find the right caviar man.

There was no one doing what Mitchell does 15 years ago because, unlike France, he says, “American cuisine hadn’t grown up enough.”