Salt & Meadow Partners
We’re proud to feature products from Steamboat Wharf Oyster Co., Miss Mary Seafood, Asdon Mills, Sam Rust Seafood, Little Bay Seafood, Overholt Beef, Chapel Hill Beef and Locksley Estate Farmstead.
Steamboat Wharf Oysters
Thomas Hyde never intended to become an oyster farmer. He grew up in the Northern Neck and harvested oysters in high school for fun, for gas money. But when he and his wife, Callie Robinson Hyde, relocated to Hyde’s mom’s farm during the pandemic, oysters became their livelihood.
The couple scattered some seeds on Hyde’s family oyster lease, and the small hobby soon grew into a business: Steamboat Wharf Oyster Co.
The company produces a Top Shelf cocktail oyster—a plump, medium salinity varietal with a cream shell and a deep cup. “It’s a very typical Rappahannock oyster—a little sweeter, a little meatier,” Hyde says.
The Tides Inn has between 500 and 1,000 of the bivalves delivered each week. They are served raw at Salt & Meadow, topped with a seaweed salad and sesame seeds and paired with cocktail sauce and a mignonette. The resort offers opportunities to learn more about oysters and their importance to the local ecosystem through two immersive oyster farm experiences, including our signature Chesapeake Goldouting, and self-exploration along our living shoreline. And we recycle all of the leftover shells to help provide a habitat for wild oysters and other animals.
📸: Chris M Rogers