Executive chef Melissa Craig hasn't offered Fraser River sockeye at Bearfoot Bistro in Whistler, B.C., for years. Because of its scarcity, "I didn't touch it last year. I wouldn't put it on my menu for sure," she says.
But this year, thanks to a near-record sockeye run, she is bringing the wild, red-fleshed fish back. Ms. Craig is planning to turn it into sashimi tartare and to smoke it and freeze it.
"Might as well use the bounty that we have right now," she says.
B.C. restaurants that previously used Fraser River sockeye sparingly, or avoided it altogether, are celebrating this year's unexpectedly strong run, believed to be the biggest in nearly 100 years - and for the first time in a long time, they're serving it guilt-free.
But some restaurants are wary of getting swept up in the bonanza and the resulting bargain prices, and are trying to weed out the quality product from the rest.
At Vancouver's C Restaurant, which specializes in sustainable seafood, executive chef Robert Clark has refused to serve sockeye for at least four years, and has instead opted to put other, more sustainable species such as spring, chum and pink on his menu.
Now, however, he is serving sockeye raw as sashimi, curing it, smoking it, creating special tasting menus and pan-searing it to go along with Israeli couscous, locally made chorizo, fresh peas and tomatoes.
"We're having more fun with it ... simply because, well, customers are coming in looking for it, so it's giving us more opportunity to create different dishes with it," he says.
Mr. Clark says he sources his sockeye from a local fisher, who catches it in the Strait of Georgia, within sight of the city. "For us, it's great. To be able to harvest and serve protein that's harvested so close to home makes it more sustainable. And Fraser River sockeye is the best," he says.
But while the market prices of sockeye are plummeting, in some cases to around $7.99 a pound retail, or 50 per cent below regular prices, Mr. Clark says he isn't paying lower prices because he buys a higher-end sockeye, and that means his customers are not seeing a price break either.
The difference is in how the salmon are fished.
Mr. Clark prefers salmon that is trolled, brought to the surface live and then allowed to "bleed out," because he believes that this method yields a higher-quality product. Much of the cheaper sockeye that is currently available has been caught by gillnets, he says, which can suffocate the fish and kill them before they are pulled out of the water.
"I'm sure there's restaurants out there that are having sockeye festivals and having $9.99 [specials where]you get sockeye and blueberry pie. ... But I'm sure my peers aren't dropping their prices ... because they, too, probably aren't going for the cheaper, gillnetted fish," Mr. Clark says.
"I don't think it's affecting [prices at]white-tablecloth restaurants the same, but you'll see smaller restaurants that probably couldn't afford sockeye ... putting it on the menu."
Darren Gates, chief operating officer of Vancouver-based Sequoia Company of Restaurants, which includes The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant, the Teahouse in Stanley Park, Seasons in the Park at Queen Elizabeth Park and Cardero's, says his company is enthused about the availability of sockeye, but it, too, is reacting with caution.
"What we're trying to understand from [suppliers]is what's the relationship of the increase of supply to the different levels of quality that are out there," he says. "... It's a bit of a frenzy right now."
Mr. Gates says his company intends to pass on any dip in price to his customers, but he could not provide any immediate figures.
While some of Sequoia's restaurants are featuring sockeye already, he says the company is now thinking long-term, mulling how - and whether - it might use the frozen and packaged product from this year's run that will be sold on the market later on. "We haven't had to make those decisions around sockeye for a long time," he says, "so we just want to be thoughtful."
At Vancouver's Glowbal Restaurant Group, which includes Coast seafood restaurant, corporate chef Darren Brown anticipates that every dollar decrease in the market price of sockeye will probably translate into an average dip of two to three dollars on a typical $21 sockeye dish on his menus.
As part of Vancouver's Ocean Wise sustainable-seafood program, he says, his company had offered alternative salmon species, particularly coho, to steer customers away from the delicate sockeye.
Now, he says, "one thing that's a big relief is: a) hopefully our efforts over the past couple years are related [to this year's strong run]... and b) we can in good conscience be going back to sockeye now, which is still... what's popular."
He is well aware that the current bounty may not last, however. "What's really telling and what will dictate the next year or so is how the run closes and how much salmon gets put away and how much stock the fishermen and vendors end up [with]" he says. "That will dictate the price for us, right up until next season."
Kelly Roebuck, Ocean Wise program co-ordinator, says the various stocks of salmon have a four-year cycle and there was a large sockeye run in 2006, so it's unlikely that this year's bounty is a result of consumers abstaining from sockeye.
"Over all, it does help, of course, if people basically take a break from a certain species to allow it to recover ... but I wouldn't say the strong run this year can be attributed to that," she says.
Ms. Roebuck also says that even though Ocean Wise has recommended Fraser River sockeye as a good choice for restaurants and vendors this year, that may well change next season. "Because it is a strong run this year does not necessarily mean that next year we will see the same number of fish returning," she says.
Wency Leung