Cast your mind back to a time when gastro-pubs were cool, the walkman cutting edge and Victoria Beckham still called posh spice. Was it deemed necessary to be on first name terms with the chap catching your supper? Why would you need to know the specific stretch of canal said supper called home or how many Tesco trolleys were “line-caught” before the inevitable demise of Billy the bass.
Today anything that passes our lips must either be hand-reared by Hugh, sustainably caught by Rick, locally sourced by Gordon or at least once in its life have had the pleasure of Jamie wiping its derriere with organically grown hemp leaves.
Perhaps I am somewhat missing the point, but is animal cruelty any less rife on your door step than it is in say, Huddersfield? Would a herring given the choice, choose to die alone on the line of a rusty old sea dog or with thousands of shawl friends in the nets of the good ship aquatic euthanasia.
Now before you assemble the local lynch mob and start burning effigies of Bernard Matthews outside my front door, you can relax. I’m all for sustainability. Just ask my mother. I was eating worms straight out of the ground and goldfish from the funfair years before Captain Birdseye became carbon-neutral. Even as a toddler I was conscious of my food miles and now I exclusively shop at Sainsbury’s, it’s only 150 yards from my kitchen door so even my lemons are locally sourced.
It’s refreshing to see in these times of identikit restaurants where the moral led lead the moral less and chefs settle turf wars by adding more fishermen’s friends on facebook, that some are prepared to make a stand. To be proud to fly fish from Madagascar because it sounds more exotic than Grimsby and to laugh in the face of EU fishing quotas by serving rare, endangered and blooming tasty cod and chips.
Fisher’s in Clifton village is one of those restaurants, although more Margate than Marbella. Think lobster pots on the walls, portholes in the doors and rope where the banisters should be. A nautical theme restaurant in the style that I presumed on the brink of extinction, a dying species inhabited only during wet summer months by the endangered blue rinse and the greater spotted urbanite.
The menu is international and proud, sticking two fingers up to ethical sourcing, global warming and every celebrity chef now aboard the zero emission gravy train. Canadian lobsters, Portuguese sardines, tiger prawns and yellow fin tuna stage their very own world war food fight with Cornish scallops, Brixham skate, Scottish mussels and Irish oysters.
The wife ate Taramasalata, smooth, pale and delightfully fishy. Calamari was soggy, tough and smelt like Kerry Katona. Probably from Somerfield’s freezer department eight doors up the road. But hell, at least it’s locally sourced.
Fish and chips were more beaten than battered. So overcooked it oozed like garlic butter from a concrete chicken Kiev. The Canadian lobster thermidor, was unavailable, probably still jet lagged from its Vancouver connection so a pan-fried Brixham skate wing was just that. Good fish, simply cooked with pre-requisite caper butter.
Service was polite and cutesy. Mostly pretty young girls who didn’t really need the job but Daddy thought it a good idea to earn their own Bacardi breezers.
Fishers isn’t a bad restaurant, it’s just not very good. Technical skill in the kitchen is nothing without good sourcing, and there little trace of either here. The decor and menu are like a trip to Morrison’s. Familiar and homely but lacking the Marks & Sparks sex appeal.
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