How Hard is it to get Fresh Fish?

Fresh fish these days just seems harder and harder to get. I think that maybe I have been a little spoilt in my career to have had the opportunity to work with some great produce which believe me I am truly grateful. Strange that now I am working so close to the sea I seem to be experiencing the other end ‘the lack of’.

Maybe due to the mass production of imported frozen fish we suffer in the search for fresh produce. Could it be that the demand by us chefs is too high or are we just happy to get frozen processed? However, the big gourmet restaurants in the cities don’t seem to have such a problem. I guess that is because the fish markets there source the produce from all over which then gives them greater availability of fish to the chefs.

I also understand that closures need to be inplace to allow the growth of the species and not to be fished out. It also varies from state to state with closures. Maybe also the weather has an effect on supply. Maybe it is the cost involved. I would gladly pay the asking price for fresh produce and receive it on a daily basis in the perfect world. I just find it hard to get my head around the fact that I can see the sea from the kitchen at Beaches (how lucky I am) and yet with such perfect weather some days there is little fresh fish.

Are the fisherman lazy? Imagine if we could have our own fisherman that would go out once a week and catch some fish, bring it back direct to the restaurant e voila. We need fishermen to go out and catch fish. The fisherman need to earn a living, we need to pay the asking price, and we need the fish to be graded and processed to comply with health and safety. Then we need regular delivery. So where lies the problem?

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