A cookbook where fish are the star of the dish...

Martin Hesp interviews Rockfish restaurateur and well-known seafood chef Mitch Tonks

There are many things to like about seafood chef Mitch Tonks, who owns the Rockfish chain of restaurants across the South West, and his cheerful sense optimism is definitely one of them. He has needed it over the past year and it has obviously worked, because not only is the Rockfish chain and its 280 employees reopening, it is due to expand.

But how a restaurateur rides out the Covid storm is not the subject matter here. It’s more about what Mitch did during the storm – by which I mean: take the opportunity to use the unexpected downtime to write a book.

Called Rockfish, The Cookbook, this is Brixham-based Mitch’s sixth collection of recipes and it is, I promise, a pure joy for anyone who even begins to like the idea of seafood.

Which in itself is newsworthy at the moment, thanks to a Netflix documentary called Seaspiracy that has been making a big splash among headline writers. News reports suggest that a great many viewers have decided to stop eating any kind of seafood, having been convinced by certain elements of the documentary. At the same time, Seaspiracy has also attracted expert critics (including some of the scientists who appear in the film) who claim the British filmmaker Ali Tabrizi’s coverage of the fishing industry has as many holes as a Brixham net.

When I talked to Mitch about his new book this week, I felt I had to mention this new elephant (or whale) in the room, given how much attention the newly released documentary has been attracting.

“It is a propaganda film which

presents one side of an argument,” commented Mitch, who has worked closely with the Marine Conservation Society over the years. “Sadly, it ignored the positive results of all the amazing work done by the MCS, and the Marine Stewardship Council and local fisheries in creating and managing sustainable fisheries.”

He continued: “Humans can live in harmony with nature if enough thought and care is put into it, but it’s also about forcing a lifestyle on people... I’m not against vegans, but I feel there’s often an agenda which can ignore complicated issues. It is relatively easy for a filmmaker to show fins being cut from multiple sharks and talk about extreme behaviour in other parts of the world – and then go on to tar everything with the same brush.” But, he added: “You could equally make a good documentary about all the small scale fisheries that cause no problems with the balance of marine life. There are so many people who are really frustrated by this documentary, because much of the science they’ve referred to is outdated.”

Certainly the documentary does not show any of the smaller kind of fisheries, such as the ones the MSC certifies in the Westcountry, nor does it portray recent work done on the Marine Conservation Zones which we have around our coasts.

So, whale in the room out of the way, what about Mitch’s new book? Well perhaps there’s no better person to answer that question than the region’s other great seafood cook, Nathan Outlaw... “Mitch’s ethos is that of keeping to species that are sustainable, showcasing the fish we should be eating and encouraging us to try something different, and then cooking that fish with the utmost respect. A series of Rockfish restaurants have popped up around the South West coast in the past few years and as a family we have been lucky enough to dine in most of them.”

Nathan continues: “The food is as we’d expect: generous, well cooked and, most of all, incredibly delicious. With this amazing book, we can all now recreate those dishes at home using Mitch’s easy to follow recipes. All the Rockfish favourites are in these pages, along with a few that will no doubt appear on menus soon – from the traditional to the slightly more exotic, the simple to the more challenging. It’s a comprehensive collection which means that when we can’t get to the restaurants, we can have a go at home.”

Mitch told me that the Covid lockdown had given him the opportunity to sit down and start writing: “It’s something I really enjoy. I look back at old notebooks which act as my own sort of travel cookbooks – they feature things I’ve eaten or things I want to cook.

“Maybe I’ve written down ingredients I’ve seen in a market and then I sort of cook them in my mind. I can imagine the flavours, especially with seafood. Having cooked it for so long, I know the different textures and flavours so well. Then I start combining different repertoires of seafood. I like the idea of fish being the complete star of a dish.”

Mitch said this summer at home he’d be following some of the more simple recipes on busy days. “Things like stuffed tomatoes and fresh crab slaw or a tin of good sardines on toast.”

Very simple, then – but Mitch is going to be busy. For example, he was tells me that local councils like the one in Dartmouth have been most understanding when it comes to the restaurants expanding terraces on pavements and the like, so outdoor diners can be catered for. Also, there’s an exciting new development at The Rockfish in Plymouth, where they’ve massively expanded a large decking area and included a dedicated Salcombe Brewery bar. Indeed, Salcombe could soon be getting its new Rockfish soon, once the planning has gone through. “We have survived the pandemic lockdowns – I made it my business to survive,” Mitch told me. “Once I got over the initial shock of it all, I made the decision we’d have to survive to save our 280 jobs (which grows to 300 to 400 jobs in summer).”

But even if we can’t all make it to eat at a Rockfish, we can all make Mitch’s delicious recipes. I for one intend making every dish in the book.

Rockfish, The Cookbook (£18), is available at all Rockfish restaurants and www.therockfish.co.uk