Berkeley food hot-spots in spotlight for fish sustainability

January 26, 2011 2:54 pm by Tracey Taylor

Only half of the seafood on menus at some top Bay Area restaurants are sustainably harvested. Photo: Tracey Taylor.

Monterey Fish Market, Chez Panisse and Sea Salt are some of the Bay Area food destinations that come under scrutiny for the sustainability of the seafood by sell in an investigative story in San Francisco Magazine‘s February issue, published tomorrow.

The piece, by Erik Vance, finds that only half of the seafood on the menus at many supposedly eco-conscious Bay Area restaurants are sustainably harvested. Vance reports that many famous chefs and top restaurants continue to include unsustainable choices such as ahi tuna, monkfish and farmed salmon on their menus, while their suppliers “keep selling red-listed fish to whoever wants it”.

The article points out that although many chefs have good relationships with farmers and ranchers — often giving them a shout-out on their menus — they don’t always have direct connections with fishermen. “Even the many chefs who go out of their way to ask the right questions of the people they get their fish from can be misled by the half-truths told all along the supply chain,” writes Vance.

On one night in December, San Francisco Magazine collected the menus from 18 restaurants which like to highlight their organic and sustainability credentials. They then traced the source of the listed seafood to assess how the fish was caught, and scored them based on the percentage of the seafood that was deemed to be “truly sustainable’. Chez Panisse scored 63% with eight fish on the menu, compared to 75% at Oliveto (4), 60% at Wood Tavern (5), 46% at Boulevard (13) and 42% (7) at Flora.

Chez Panisse co-chef Beth Wells is quoted as saying the restaurant trusts its main supplier, Monterey Fish Market, to provide the right seafood. Monterey Fish Market has a stellar reputation as far as sustainability goes, but it, and other fish dealers like Ports Seafood, express concern that if they refuse to sell certain fish, restaurants will simply go elsewhere. Tom Worthington, a partner at Monterey Fish Market, says he is working on converting reluctant chefs and other wholesalers to behave more responsibly.

At Sea Salt, chef Scott Gehring tells Vance that although they do their best to be sustainable, and have taken red-listed items off the menu, it can be hard going.

Read the full story in print and online in San Francisco Magazine tomorrow.

9 Comments

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  • Andrew

    Let’s face it – good seafood is getting harder and harder to find. We cannot continue to feed the masses fish every day. As consumers WE have to make the hard choice to not eat fish very often, which is hard because it is good and good for you.

    It has always boggled me how a restaurant can be fish focused when it must be taxing to find reliable sources of sustainable fish and serve it up in interesting ways.

    It concerns me that Monterey Fish Market may be selling under the table, so to speak. I, too, trust them, but if I can’t then I too will go elsewhere in search of reliable fish mongers.

    BTW what does the percentage mean in the article’s restaurant ratings? Chez Panisse is 63%, but 63% in what metric?

  • http://www.tktaylor.com Tracey Taylor

    Andrew: The percentage figures refers to the % of the fish on the menu that was determined to be truly sustainable.

  • http://www.tktaylor.com Tracey Taylor

    Andrew — I’ve made that point clearer in the story. Thanks for alerting me to the need for clarification.

  • Tim

    It’s unfortunate to give up fish, but my partner and I decided two years ago that we would give up almost all fish in our diet because we couldn’t be sure where and how most of it was sourced, and because of the reality that most fish is overfished to the point of absurdity. Now we’re lucky to eat fish twice per year, and when we do we try to find varieties like sardines and other types that aren’t currently overfished. I used to love tuna, but I’ve reconciled the fact that I may never eat another in my life– it just wouldn’t be responsible of me to do it.

  • http://www.vivajesse.com/work Anthony Sanchez

    Sustainable seafood is a serious environmental issue that has luckily been brought to the public’s attention by organizations like the Monterey Bay Aquarium and good reporting.

    Also, the Berkeley City Council is interested in sustainable seafood and directed the Community Environmental Advisory Commission to deliberate the details of a possible sustainaibility label proposal on fish sold in retail last year. Hopefully some good will come of it.

    The link to the item is http://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/Clerk/Level_3_-_City_Council/2010/07Jul/2010-07-13_Item_38_Referral_to_Community_Environmental_Advisory_Commission_Sustainable_Seafood.pdf

  • Todd

    There is not enough fish in the sea. People — consumers and the fishing industry — really need to change.

  • Alan Tobey

    For those interested in the topic and a wider perspective, there’s an excellent article — “The Blue Food Revolution” in the February Scientific American

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-blue-food-revolution

    While not excusing the present use of threatened species, it points to improvements in aquaculture that are dealing with current objections.

    A lot of us will be eating more-sustainanbly-farmed fish in the future, even on high-end tables — and without any residual guilt. In the meantime, let’s still try to lay off the Chilean sea bass and its endangered friends.

  • Scott

    The problem is that we harvest from the upper tiers of the fish food chain, where species are more tenuous and easier to overexploit (also more prone to store toxins). If we eat more sardines, herring, anchovy and smelt, we’ll have less impact on the resource. Often sold as “bait fish” but known to biologists as forage fish, these are part of a vast biomass stratum in the north Pacific. While inshore (bay and estuary) populations have declined, the overall extent of these fish populations is large and can be sustainably harvested. These fish have fewer toxins than most larger fish. They’re available at markets, but be sure to find places that treat them as food rather than bait.

  • Lexy

    1. I’m not at all surprised that Oliveto is top of the list. Though other restaurants care about their ingredients, Oliveto’s commitment to sharing information about where their ingredients come from is unmatched. http://www.oliveto.com/ourcommunity/

    2. Identifying sustainable fish is not simple. Vance’s article reflects the fact that there is not a single, definitive list of sustainably raised fish. The Monterey Fish website has some interesting thoughts on this subject. http://www.montereyfish.com/sustainability.htm