Flying Fish Seafoods, Cornish seafood at its best

Flying Fish Seafoods

Cornish seafood at its best.

A well known logotype in Englands better kitchens

Nestling down in Cornwall on the A30 at St Columb is one of Englands finest seafood suppliers: Flying Fish Seafoods who's focus is mainly on quality local seasonal fish and seafood sourced direct from Cornwalls harbours and fish markets and delivered along the M5 corridor and into Londons finest kitchens. check out their web site with realistic images and information enough to help write a menu. 

bath houses at the St Moritz hotel

If you are down around this area i can strongly recommend the St Moritz hotel at Trebetherick, overlooking the headlands and estuary just a stones throw from Polzeath surf beach.

The country lane down from the St Moritz

The St Moritz is like a film set, old English charm set in a modern seaside resort hotel.

Low tide at Rock 

Not far from the St Moritz is Rock a seemingly well to do little destination set on the river, just across from Padstow as the crow flies. Try the local produce and excellent beef at Mariners rock restaurant.

Harbour veiw at Newlyn  

Our visit of course had nothing to do with quaint hotels and rural tourist vistas it was about visiting the local fish market at Newlyn and Flying Fish Seafoods we were sounding out best practices and routines with my old friend from the Savoy hotel in London, now GM at Flying Fish seafoods & a small group of delegates from a soon to open quality focused fish supplier here in Stockholm.

Hake on ice

Hake was never a real popular fish when I worked in England "it all went to Spain",

merluza a la plancha.

Now of course its a different story hake has become an alternative to the dwindling atlantic cod, as well as growing in reputation to meet its own potential. This size hake are seldom seen in our Swedish markets or in our restaurants, looks like we're still sending it to Spain.

John Dory 

A nice John Dory specimen at the absolute top of the "prime" fish list. John Dory is an all eater with an extendable "alien" mouth sucking in its prey, they are easily recognised by the black spot on the flank, reputedly St Peter's thumb print and it's distinctive split fillet. Handling John Dory can also be a challenge for the novice with it's barbs, spikes and armour. so take care.

A spring visitor to the southern coast

As the warm currents begin to flow into the coasts so does the mackerel also move closer into the coast. a good food fish eaten fresh, its oily texture is well suited smoked, pickled, escabeche ect.

Fish roe

Every local fish wholesaler should have a cooking competition looking for good fish roe recipes, especially when we contemplate how many kilos are wasted or not used every year. 

Please send me a recipe if you have a one.

Cornish oysters

Not a fin de claire or belon in sight, only Cornish rock, even with a simple product like oysters Flying Fish confirm their commitment to promoting and selling their local produce, the local rock are of good size and full of flavour.

spiny dog fish 

Although red listed in some areas the spiny dog fish or spur dog were very prevalent at Newlym market, easily identified with two spikes, one at each dorsal fin. Spiny dog fish are often sold in fish and chip shops as huss and is sometimes sold under the now outlawed name of rock salmon. In northern Europe the dog fish is rarely seen in restaurants due to its listning even though when available it is generally served as a plate fish with firm fillets suitable to plate service.

line caught pollok

Visiting fish markets and auctions should be a must for every chef, exchanging views and collecting information about quality, freshness, seasonability and fishing techniques from the buyers should help determine the menu selection. These fantastic bright, slime covered and colourful line caught pollok were no comparison to beam trawled examples.
As our Flying Fish guide pointed out the beam trawled fish are like stone washed jeans.

tope

Tope or school shark are not really a species that I remember from my time in England, these examples were at Newlyn fish market where they are in good supply, tope is starting to turn up on menu's here. I have come across tope in portioned forms many times when I have been visiting in and around the Mediterranean, usually sliced or cut into cutlets and fried in a flat top. many of these school and dog shark are red listed, use with care, this is probably why they don't quiet fit into Flying Fish's profile.  

scallops

Local scallops at Newlyn one of the source fishing auctions in Cornwall for Flying Fish.

local cornish lobsters

Flying Fishes lobster tanks were of great interest as they were a focus point of the study trip in for the new Stockholm operation, Flying Fishes tanks are full of locally caught 1kg specimens, not really the supermarket size that we are used to from the other side of the Atlantic.

in our market best

On our way into the Newlyn market, one of the local markets used by Flying Fish Seafoods to supply Cornish seafood to the quality demanding high end restaurant business. A flexible young and totally committed supplier built on quality and service and more quality and service.