Jay Gallet, the US National Oyster Shucking winner and head shucker at Superior Seafood says preparation is everything
Jordan “Jay” Gallet estimates that he’s shucked about 10 million oysters in his lifetime—and that’s conservative. As a professional oyster shucker for New Orleans’ Superior Seafood & Oyster Bar since 2014, a competitive shucker on the national oyster shucking circuit, and the child of an oysterman, he can distinctly recall being about 7 years old the first time he opened one. “It always came natural to me,” he says.
Gallet grew up as the second oldest of 10 siblings in Empire, Louisiana. Before Hurricane Katrina, his father owned a few different oyster leases and boats; he passed away before Katrina hit but Gallet’s oldest brother took over the business, rebuilding after the storm and growing it to around 30,000 acres, 10 boats, and an oyster shucking house. Gallet’s first job out of high school was for Salvo’s Seafood where he started shucking. He bounced around at other restaurants, took a break when the BP oil spill hit in 2010, and then found himself behind the raw bar at Superior, where he now runs the oyster program. Superior goes through about 15,000 oysters a week. “We’ll do around one million oysters a year and I personally open about 650,000 of those,” he notes.
His move into competitive shucking came somewhat out of the blue. In 2008, he met a competitive shucker who inspired him. “I thought, man, I would love to do that—that’s my skill,” he says. Fast forward to 2016 and Gallet was working at Superior Seafood, which is a caterer for the annual P&J Oyster Festival, where an annual shucking contest takes place. Someone from the festival came by to load up crawfish for the event and Gallet told him he was interested in the shucking contest. “One thing led to another and a guy called me up and said the pre-qualifier was that day. He said, if you can be here in two hours, I’ll let you in.” Gallet got there and immediately realized that restaurant shucking and competitive shucking are two totally different sports. Judges are looking for a clean cut without any shell or grit on the oyster. “It can’t look like scrambled eggs, you know?”
He got fourth place in the preliminaries. “I realized I gotta take my time, take a steady pace, make a clean cut, and take care of the oyster,” he says. He went on to not only win the 2016 overall competition but broke a record for his speed—he’s been hooked ever since. The person he beat in New Orleans that year, another well-known shucker named Honor Allen, went on to win the US National competition, which pushed Gallet to give it a go in 2017. His first year, he came in second place—beating out people who had been competing for years. He kept at it, losing the initial nervous energy that comes with a new sport, training himself to treat it like he has nothing to lose, and in 2022 he took home the title of US National Oyster Champion. He’s now competed in eight national contests and he’s traveled to Canada and Galway, Ireland, for the World Shucking Competition.
After 20 contests, Gallet knows his own secret to success is preparation. He practices with speed trials and studies the judges to determine what they’re looking for, while also closely examining the oysters he’ll be shucking that day. “You make sure your knives are ready and you check out those oysters before you start.” Gallet is a table shucker, meaning he sets the oyster on a table, usually propped up on a small block and scoots the knife tip into the hinge. “The reason I do that is because here at the restaurant I’m opening 2,000 to 2,500 oysters a day, so I need just a little bit of an extra boost, a way to just rest my arm a little bit higher. It helps when you’re doing 12 to 14 hours a day, five days a week,” he says. As for his tools, he sticks with a simple Mercer shucking knife that you can find on Amazon for about $11.
For Superior, Gallet orders different sizes of oysters depending on how they’re prepared; he prefers wild and cultivated oysters and orders directly from the purveyors. He goes with smaller cultivated oysters to serve raw and larger wild oysters for the restaurant’s char-grilled option. “They gotta be nice and big, and you know. When you get a big dozen oysters to the table, smelling all good with butter and cheese, you know it’s good. Those little details are important,” he says.
He’s not done with competing, either, saying he’ll keep trying for the World Shucking title in Galway. “One of the best things I’ve learned over this journey, and I’ve learned a lot, is that no matter what happens, be grateful, be humble, enjoy the process, and be a good sport,” he says, but adds with a laugh: “You know the goal is always to bring that hardware home.”
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Erin Byers Murray
Erin Byers Murray has been digging into stories about food and wine for more than twenty years. Based in Nashville, she is the editor-in-chief of The Local Palate and has authored or co-authored half a dozen books, including deep dives into oysters and grits, as well as several cookbooks. Her work has been published in multiple publications, including Food & Wine, Wine & Spirits, the Boston Globe, and three editions of Best Food Writing.
