SARAH: We're switching the conversation from something that is mediated by the chef demanding
a certain item to be put on a static menu to the fisherman telling the chef what is the most sustainable,
freshest and most local catch available to them.
SARAH: You have to be able to take whatever comes through the back of your kitchen door every
week with less than 24 hours notice, and the reason there's less than 24 hour's notice
about what you're fish is going to be that week is because it's just that fresh.
Oh, look at that.
The chef has to be adaptable, creative, innovative.
Wow.
I think part of the fun, for me personally,
is the exciting challenge of not knowing what
we're going to get until the night before and then how to best present this beautiful
product that she's brought us.
SARAH: That's your California halibut.
We're asking chefs to highlight and present some very under loved, under represented species
in a high-end way so that people who are interested in sustainability understand that means broadening
their palate and that means experimenting with different things they've never even heard of before.
He got 40 pounds in a single drop.
Wow.
Just like, sent 10 hooks down and came up with four pound fish on every single hook.
Right now we have this amazing lemon basil that's growing in our garden.
So we're doing a sauce with the lemon basil and a little bit of bell peppers as well because
the season is really nice for peppers.
We do a cuisine called kaiseki, which is one of the
most formal ways of dining in Japanese cooking.
The most important theme about kaiseki is definitely honoring ingredients that are closest
to you that is representative of where you're at.
So when a program like Dock to Dish comes along that is really honoring the ecosystem
and caring about the environment, it just falls in line with everything that we stand for.
SARAH: If we start diversifying the American palate, that's going to naturally lead to a more environmentally
stable and sustainable environment.
So we are on our way to Providence to meet up with Chef Michael Samaruski.
He was our spearhead chef when Dock to Dish first launched in L.A.
Without his participation and his passion and his determination, we wouldn't have this program.
So with Dock to Dish, we're targeting the leaders of the industry.
If they set the standard and say, these under loved, under represented fish - that's
en vogue, that that's the thing that we should all be eating, then that will naturally
have a cascading effect into restaurants, in a broader sense, that everyone can afford to eat at.
It's pretty big.
He's big. It's like a two handed deal.
Three fish.
Jesus Christ! That's huge.
[LAUGHS] Got it?
They're not supposed to be that big.
43 pounds.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, that's like massive.
We're here in the fish room at Providence restaurant.
We are a modern American fine dining seafood restaurant.
MICHAEL: We talk to our guests in the dining room about how the fish was caught and who caught it
and where.
To me, as a chef, there's just no...
there's no level of excitement that comes from opening
up a box of farm raised whatever.
It is the last great wild food that we have as a fairly regular part of our diets.
This fish is brought to market with very little impact on the fishery, very little impact
on the earth really, and, therefore, to me, to my mind, it definitely represents a greater
value even if the cost is maybe a bit higher.
We take the fish.
We take the skin off of it after it's filleted and then we wrap it in lardo.
It's a pork product, and then we wrap that in foi de brick, which is a crispy sort of,
like, Tunisian pastry and then we cook it in a pan until it's very crispy all around
the edges and then we slice it and it'll be served with a relish of black cherry and porcini.
If we over exploit the same species that we have been, historically, over the past several
decades, then we won't have wild fish.
The type of model that Dock to Dish represents is the model forward, really, and a model
that will keep wild fisheries healthy, you know, for generations to come.