12 hours ago
‘We Britons have no idea how to cook our fish'
Sargasso, on the harbour arm at Margate, is one of the country's best seaside restaurants. In the little kitchen, a team of smart young chefs produce bright, vaguely Spanish, fish-dominated dishes. They are led by Will Gleave, who moved from the Hill & Szrok butcher's shop-cum-restaurant in east London earlier this year. He served us esqueixada – a Catalan fish salad, golden-brown turbot, mackerel, scallops, mussels, a squid sandwich. Fish done right, bought direct from a fisherman at the end of the pier.
Inspired by my meal at Sargasso, the next morning I went to look for some fish to barbecue at home, only to find that despite being on the sea and its food-loving reputation, Margate doesn't have a fishmonger. Sargasso is only one of several fine restaurants in the town. There's Angela's and Dory's, or Buoy and Oyster, or Pearly Cow, or Bottega Caruso, at all of which you will find alluring uses of fresh fish. But woe betide the chef hoping to cook at home, who is reduced to dreary supermarkets.
'Coastal towns like Margate would have had two or three fishmongers 10 years ago,' says Ben King, co-founder of Pesky Fish, an online fresh fish market. 'Now the only source of seafood in the majority of these towns are the supermarkets, selling Norwegian salmon and Vietnamese prawns, while wild bass swims in the sea just 500 metres away.' He says that even when the demand is there, costs and a shortage of skills can make it impossible to run a business.
And it's not always clear whether the demand is there. When Keir Starmer swapped fishing rights for passport control last month, as part of his attempt to make nice with the EU, there was the usual carping. The Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called the deal a 'total sell-out' that would 'kill' fishing businesses.
The truth is that the exchange made sound political sense. While Brits love frictionless travel to Europe, especially after a couple of pints in Gatwick at 6am, we have no idea what to do with our fish. The Europeans do. Any bar-owner in San Sebastián will tell you about the glory of a Hebridean langoustine. Our Dover soles are whisked to the Michelin-starred kitchens in Paris. We prefer our fish fried, ideally in batter, as the lord intended.
A recent survey by the Marine Stewardship Council found that 43 per cent of Brits would only eat fish if it was battered or breadcrumbed. Even when it has been caught in British waters, we like our fish processed in a Dutch factory and turned into fingers before it will darken our gobs.
Encouragingly, 79 per cent of respondents to the MSC said they wanted to be more adventurous. But there is a vicious circle; how can you learn confidence cooking a fish if you never see it? Fish can be expensive, the language around it confusing. It can sometimes feel like as soon as a species becomes popular, we are told to stop eating it. Take salmon. After it overtook tuna in 2015 to become Britain's most popular fish, retail sales rose 30 per cent in five years. Now there are hardly any wild salmon left, and we are taught that salmon farming is destroying the environment.
This year's unexpected British fish boom is octopus. Boats in Brixham are hauling in tonnes of the things. But we're not allowed to eat those either; they are too intelligent. The Spanish will be licking their lips.
