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.
