Got a bone to pick?

Americans hate bones. Look at any fish case outside of Chinatown, and you'll see that everything is cut into fillets or center cuts; even the steaks are boned and tied, all of this meant to make things easy on the cook.

Lose the bones, and you also lose flavor. Many of those fillets will be juicier, brinier, and more intense if cooked on the bone. High heat caramelizes the skin and firms it, so you can lift it and the flesh off the bone in one piece and make your own fillets of large, moist flakes. But eating a whole fish means you have to work harder. And finding your way around the bones -- no one wants to swallow one -- can be tricky.

Because diners generally don't want to work that hard, restaurants have historically shied away from whole fish. But now they're showing up everywhere. Steve Johnson, chef and owner of Rendezvous in Central Square, likes to offer a grilled whole bluefish, lightly charred over a wood fire and garnished with a hot Vietnamese cucumber and red-onion salad. At the new Harrison Avenue spot Rocca, branzino is served in a black gratin dish, the fish nestled in an aromatic pool of tomatoes and thinly sliced potatoes. Tim Wiechmann is using a saw in his own kitchen to cut halibut into a bone-in dish for two at his three-month-old T.W. Food in Cambridge. A striking piece of white fish bathed in a luxuriously eggy champagne sabayon comes on a platter, along with the piece of bone, now removed, that held the fish together. "People don't really get that it's really cool," says co-owner Wiechmann.

Every culture around the Mediterranean and all over Asia eats fish on the bone. New Deal Fish Market co-owner Carl Fantasia thinks the recent interest here may come from television chefs. Where his East Cambridge shop used to cater to mostly ethnic customers who wanted fish with the heads and tails intact, he says, "over the years our clientele has broadened." Now everyone's looking for the same thing: silvery one-person branzino, farmed-raised in Europe, a mild white fish also known as Mediterranean sea bass; local black bass with its jet skin; dark-fleshed, rich bluefish, also caught off our coastline; and Boston's beloved scrod haddock, a small haddock that's manageable for any home cook.

Branzino (Italian for sea bass) is the fish many restaurateurs are using. The 1 1/2-pound size yields about 3/4 pound of flesh. All fish loses at least half its weight in bones. Fantasia, whose family has been in the retail business since 1928, says that branzino is called loup de mer (wolf of the sea) and bar (bass) in French, lubina in Spanish, lavraki in Greek, and levrek in Turkish. When he buys them at the Fish Pier, he says, "Their eyes are glistening and they're very fresh. They're caught in Europe, weighed, put in boxes, and on the planes; they're beautiful fish when they come in -- within 24 hours would be my guess."

At Mare, branzino goes into the oven with Yukon Gold potatoes and is served with braised escarole. "It's something very Italian," says general manager Amanda Evey. "We Americans are squeamish about dealing with bones." But the North End restaurant's regulars are not. Even so, the staff will fillet the fish. "Mostly the people who are visiting, the tourists, seem to have it filleted," says Evey.

In Europe, lifting fish off its bones is routine for waiters, even in cafes; it's done tableside. Wherever whole fish are on the menu, a waiter holds a knife parallel to the table and slides it between the top fillet and the center bone. Then he lifts off the fillet, pulls off the bone by picking up the tail (the head comes with it), and the bottom meat is now boneless, too.

To make eating bony fish easier for the diner, Sorellina chef Robert Jean scores the flesh in a cross-hatch pattern. "It has those diamond cuts in it. When the fish cooks, those separate and the fish comes right off," he says. He sprinkles the skin with fennel pollen, pepper, and English-harvested Maldon sea salt. "It's very clean," he says. This summer, Jean is cooking the fish with red potatoes, vinegar peppers, onions, and dried tomatoes. He buys branzino, but might also use dourade and black bass, or "whatever the fish guy tells us," he says.

Cross-hatching is a good idea for novice eaters who are afraid of bones, but to cook branzino until it is done but still moist and not worry about drying out the flesh, score the fish three times on one side. Stuff the cavity with lemon slices and fresh rosemary, rub the fish with olive oil, and sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Then slip it into a hot oven, or under the broiler, and cook it without turning until the skin starts to blister. At first, you'll have to cut into the fish to see if it's opaque down to the bone. After a while, you can press the skin to feel if the flesh is firm.

You'll also become more comfortable about removing the bones when it's time to sit down. Or do what restaurateur Johnson does. "It's easier to just eat with my fingers," he says.

This is part of a monthly series on how people are eating, new items on restaurant menus, and what consumers are buying. On July 18, look for more recipes and a step-by-step cooking video with Steve Johnson of Rendezvous restaurant.