Seafood restaurants are feeling squeezed
Climate change and humans’ bigger appetite for fish send prices rising and some supplies dropping
Ziggy Gruber took a knife to the cardboard boxes, cracking them open to reveal 400 pounds of smoked fish.
The third-generation deli man sifted through the fresh delivery of nova salmon, sable and whitefish, flown in weekly from his supplier in Brooklyn. Gruber, the owner of Kenny & Ziggy’s in the Galleria area, is one of the largest purveyors of smoked fish outside New York City, selling more than 1,000 pounds of lox and whitefish a week.
Looking over his fish order, Gruber noted he requested 20 pieces of sturgeon this week, but only three showed up. The sturgeon shortage has nearly doubled prices over the past two years, to $38 per pound from around $20, Gruber said.
“I see less and less,” Gruber said. “There’s only so much fish to go around.”
The consequences of a growing global appetite for seafood and warming seas are being felt in the kitchens of some of Houston’s most prominent seafood restaurants. Chefs are dealing with shifts in the seasonal availability of some fish, while
dwindling supply of other fish are causing prices to climb.
The situation has become so dire at times that when Gruber’s fish supplier, Acme Smoked Fish, informed him four years ago that there might be a shortage of smoked fish over Yom Kippur — the Jewish deli’s busiest day — Gruber took the first flight to New York to plead with Acme to find some way to ship some 3,000 pounds of smoked fish for the holiday.
The order came through, but ever since, Gruber said, he keeps his fingers crossed around Yom Kippur.
“I’m concerned about the sustainability of these fish,” he said. “The combination of climate change and overfishing has turned an item that people consumed on a daily basis into a luxury item. And that’s sad.”
Manabu “Hori” Horiuchi of Kata Robata, a sushi restaurant in Upper Kirby, is one of a few chefs in the U.S. certified in preparing fugu, or blowfish, a popular delicacy among daring customers.
Fugu, considered one of the world’s most poisonous fish with venom more deadly than cyanide, can be safely prepared. It’s typically served in late January through February when the cold winter waters around Horiuchi’s native Japan cause fugu to put on fat.
Last year, a warm winter led to smaller and more scarce fugu. And this year, the waters never got cold enough, so it wasn’t worth the high cost to ship fugu to Houston, Horiuchi said.
Horiuchi also remembers serving kohada, or gizzard shad, in the middle of July several decades ago. Now, the silver-skinned fish is on his menu in June because warming waters are causing the fish to lay their eggs early. Kohada spawn when the water temperature rises to around 60 degrees.
“The season is much faster than it used to be,” Horiuchi said. “I think the temperature is rising.”
Indeed, a 2016 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found the average sea surface temperature globally rose about 1.5 degrees between 1901 and 2015. The warming has accelerated over the past 30 years. While a few parts of the world’s oceans have experienced cooling, most of the world’s oceans have seen temperatures rise, the NOAA report found.
Warmer waters hold lower levels of oxygen, and therefore lower levels of algae and plankton that fish rely on to thrive, said Dr. Jaime AlvaradoBremer, the interim department head of the marine biology department at Texas A&M University-Galveston.
“Warmer oceans typically will result in lower levels of productivity and therefore less fish available,” Alvarado-Bremer said.
At the same time, warming oceans are expanding the range for warm-water fish while constraining the range of cold-water fish, Alvarado-Bremer said.
For example, it was rare to find snook in Galveston Bay 20 years ago, but it’s now commonplace. The tropical fish migrates from Florida to Texas when the water is warmer.
In Japan, sawara, or Spanish mackerel, used to be fished on the southern islands of the Pacific archipelago. As ocean temperatures have risen, the warm-water fish are now found along the once colder northern islands, Horiuchi said.
“We can anticipate certain fish will become more abundant or seasonally found earlier in the year than they used to be,” Alvarado-Bremer said. “Other fish that were common in colder waters are no longer going to be found because the water is getting warmer.”
To be sure, other weather phenomenon, such as cyclical El Niño and La Niña, and changes in currents can also impact fish supply. And despite warming ocean temperatures, the overall global production of wild fish from the ocean — as much as 90,000 million metric tons annually — has remained relatively stable, with the growth of some fish species offsetting the decline in others, Alvarado-Bremer said.
What has changed is the amount of food produced from farm fisheries in response to a growing appetite for seafood in places like China, where a growing middle class is seeking more seafood delicacies such as sushi.
In 1985, farm-raised fish accounted for 10 percent of the global seafood market. Now it’s 60 percent, with much of the fish produced in China, southeast Asia and northern Europe, AlvaradoBremer said.
However, even fish farms are struggling to keep up with burgeoning demand. Horiuchi recalls paying $25 for about 10.5 ounces of uni, or sea urchin, when he began working as a chef in the U.S. in 1999. Today, as the delicacy is found in more cuisines, the price for farm-raised uni is around $70, Horiuchi said.
Restaurateurs, who operate on small profit margins, are often forced to pass these price increases on to patrons, said Kyle Teas, owner and president of Danton’s Seafood in the Museum District. Teas hasn’t experienced any fish shortages, but he said he’s seen prices increase as demand for Gulf Coast fare, such as oysters and crab meat, has risen over the years.
“People are feeling more comfortable and confident about going out and spending money,” Teas said. “Seafood is commodity-driven. When there’s a demand increase, prices go up.”
At Blue Horizon Wholesale Seafood and Market near Rice Village, owner Frixos Chrisinis was overseeing the delivery of 6,500 pounds of fish on a recent Tuesday.
Hiramasa from Australia. Octopus from Portugal. Calamari from China and Rhode Island.
“Look at that! Look at that color!” Chrisinis said, pointing to the clear eyes of a farm-raised trout from Idaho. “That’s No. 1.”
Chrisinis, a former commercial fisherman who has been diving and spearfishing since he was a boy growing up in Greece, has been in the seafood business for nearly all of his 67 years. The fishmonger sells more than 12,000 pounds of domestic and imported fish a week, serving more than 200 local restaurants, including Hugo’s, The Grove and Escalante’s.
Over the years, Chrisinis has noticed the impact of rising ocean temperatures and demand on his business. As he unloads fish boats in Galveston, Freeport and Louisiana, he’s noticed prices have gone up as captains venture farther out to find fish.
It could be worse, said Chrisinis, who has been fishing the Gulf for 55 years. In the 1980s, he recalled, Texas put restrictions on fishing in the Gulf. At the time, Chrisinis was mad. But he has seen a resurgence of fish.
“I thought they were idiots,” Chrisinis said of state regulators. “Like, ‘Why are you doing this?’ Now, I know they were not the idiots. I was the idiot.
“We need these rules and regulations as millions of people today are seafood lovers. We’ve got to have them so our grandkids can have fish.”
“The season is much faster than it used to be. I think the temperature is rising.” Manabu “Hori” Horiuchi, Kata Robata