Pelican Restaurant

As a boy growing up in Cape May, Bill Fischer was steeped in saltwater.

During the long summer days, he could be found rock diving in the Cove with his brothers, leaping off wooden pillars into the surf like Shore birds at high tide. When high school ended, young Bill, like many of his friends, found himself on a boat steaming 18 hours out to sea in search of porgies, scallops, and fishing glory along the continental shelf. It was in his blood, and he was good, earning $46,000 on a scallop boat in a period of nine months.

Not bad for a 17-year-old in 1977. But would the seas be so kind to a 49-year-old chef who'd spent the previous 25 years searing Chilean sea bass steaks and threading crab cakes with zucchini?

Looking back now from his dining room at the Pelican Restaurant in Sewell, which he bought a year ago following a brief return to fishing, Fischer concedes: "It was brutal. I lost nine pounds in three weeks. And my shoulder's still sore."

Fischer abandoned commercial fishing a quarter century earlier for the kitchen - a more stable career, he says, for raising a family. But after exiting Caffe Aldo Lamberti, where he spent 16 years as executive chef, it was no surprise that he returned to the waves.

Fischer was raising money the best way he knew to start his own restaurant, after decades of working for others. Just four days out of the kitchen, he was on a clamming boat out of New Bedford, heading 100 miles out with his old mate, "Capt. Billy," for 18-hour days of big-ticket swordfish and bigeye tuna fishing.

It might seem odd that Fischer's dream landed him here, as the latest tenant of an existing BYO called Pelican, in an off-the-grid strip across from Washington Township High School. A rowdy pack of well-juiced students, leaping on car hoods and swooping perilously through the parking lot out front, didn't exactly stoke high expectations as we headed in.

But Pelican is full of pleasant surprises. Inside, it's decidedly upscale, with dark wood floors and white linens warmed by Dijon-colored walls, fabric-billowed ceilings, branches of twinkling lights, and maritime sepia photos.

And while the young servers could use a little polish (especially with menu prices drifting a bit high for this corner of South Jersey - mid- to high $20s), the integrity of Fischer's cooking merits serious appreciation. Not for any inventive culinary ideas. The focus on familiar Italian seafood dishes won't surprise anyone who's eaten at Caffe Aldo Lamberti in recent years.