Fisherman’s Wharf owner hints at ingredients in former MS Coast restaurant’s legendary pie

Fisherman’s Wharf has been defunct for over eight years, but vocal fans proudly attribute their high standards for seafood – and love of an all-important pie – to the Gulf Coast establishment that once served the then-president of the United States.

The recipe and secret ingredients of the establishment’s pie still remain a mystery, much to the dismay of hungry customers, who’ve since taken to social media and the pages of the Sun Herald looking for answers.

“I can’t give you no hints,” former owner John Aldrich told the Sun Herald. “My mother would turn over in her grave if she knew I gave the recipe out.”

But he did subtly slip a few. He said those allergic to nuts should avoid eating it.

“It’s so simple it’s complicated,” Aldrich added. “Mother’s motto was keep it simple.”

The recipe has been kept secret for the entirety of the restaurant’s ownership.

Aldrich said he was tempted to post it in a long chain of Facebook messages reminiscing over his family’s old establishment. Over 100 users traded memories and asked each other if anyone knew the pie recipe.

The restaurant is going to stay closed, he said. It’s just too tiring and stressful to run. There’s too much competition, he said.

He’s toyed with the idea of opening a kitchen that would market, produce and sell the pies. Really, he said, he didn’t know there was such a demand for them. Only a few days ago, after seeing the long Facebook thread, he even toyed with leaking the pie recipe.

His son knows the secret pie recipe. It’s up to him to keep it secret – or not – and maybe he’ll someday want to reopen the restaurant, Aldrich said.

Over the years, countless guesses have been made to what’s in the recipe.

“It is a special pie,” he said. I ate it so much I got tired of it.”

A retrospective on Fisherman’s Wharf

The Facebook page of Fisherman’s Wharf suddenly announced the restaurant would close “due to unforeseen circumstances” in June of 2016.

The restaurant started in 1947 in Biloxi. It was beachfront. The founding family sold it in 1974 to the Aldrich dynasty; they’re responsible for most of the memorable food and well-guarded recipes.

Items on the menu had specific names, like “shrimp Jacquline,” said to be named after the owner’s late mother. Employees worked at the restaurant for long stretches, a few of them over 20 years. It wasn’t a big or a particularly fancy place. It held around 50 guests.

The wharf was welcomed, more-or-less, as a part of the short-lived Lady Luck casino in the ‘90s and redecorated in an Asian style to fit the casino’s theme. Fisherman’s Wharf later relocated to Ocean Springs after a dispute with Lady Luck and moved again to D’Iberville after briefly closing the spot in Ocean Springs. The D’Iberville location was the restaurant’s last.

Customers remember the relocated iterations of the restaurant for the same quality food but a loss of something in the atmosphere, a feeling they found hard to describe.

Former president Gerald Ford visited on the campaign trail through the Coast in 1976. Secret service scuba divers were dispatched to ensure the beachfront restaurant’s shallow waters were secure, or so the rumor goes.

Even first lady Betty Ford was supposedly denied the pie’s fleeting recipe.

The restaurant’s original land was the source of a years-long legal dispute between the Aldrich family and the state over ownership. A 1784 Spanish land grant was used in a ruling that sided with the Aldrichs.

Letters to the Sun Herald

Kelly Moore was one of thousands lined up to wave at the presidential motorcade. She was 8 years old at the time and moved to the Coast the same year the restaurant opened. It was an unforgettable moment in her childhood, she said.

“It would really be nice to see it come back,” she said. “They gave lots of happy memories that they should be proud of.”

Moore doesn’t live on the Coast anymore. But she said Fisherman’s Wharf single handedly set a high bar for how she looks at seafood to this day.

It was so meaningful to her, she wrote a letter to the Sun Herald’s Sound Off . Others have too, over time.

She still remembers her favorite orders: shrimp ramalad salad, broiled snapper and the crab meat cocktail. A visit wasn’t complete without a pie, she added.

Moore still has guesses to the secret pie’s secret ingredients – nutmeg and cinnamon.

Charles Miller, a lifelong resident of the Coast, fondly remembers visiting the restaurant when it was beachfront in Biloxi. He said that its lines were always long, a sign of good cuisine. He, too, wrote to Sound Off.

“We’d wait as long as two hours for a table, but we didn’t mind,” he said. “It was great.”

Standing by the restaurant’s pier, sipping a beer or two wasn’t such a bad wait.

He frequented the spot about twice a month, he said. It always seemed to draw tourists, he said.

He’d go with his wife and make a game of finding the seat President Ford sat in, denoted with a placard. On a day that game was particularly hard, it was because his wife was sitting in the presidential seat.

The prices were fair, he said. He, also, remembers his favorite order: the seafood platter. The only reason he’d refrain from ordering the restaurant’s pie, he said, was because he was full. So usually he’d just get it to go.

“I wish it was still there,” Miller said. “No place I’ve been to for seafood has ever measured up to it. If they opened another restaurant tonight, I’d be there”