Douglas Bernstein, executive chef at Fish
Douglas Bernstein is executive chef at Fish restaurant in Sausalito, which specializes in local and sustainably sourced seafood.
What is your mission at Fish?
My main goal right now is to introduce customers to a new way of looking at their seafood. I would be hard-pressed to find someone in the Bay Area who’s going to buy a package of strawberries in January and say, “Oh, this is the best we’re ever going to get.” But those same people haven’t quite been shown yet that just like vegetables, fish have a season. There’s a season for salmon.
So it’s all about sustainability for you?
I’ve moved on from using the word sustainable, because the word has so many different meanings to different people. I like the word “renewable.” That’s more clearcut. It’s either going to be here tomorrow or not.
How do you decide what fish to buy?
I won’t go outside of California, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. I rarely buy fish from the East Coast. I don’t buy any Japanese fish. I only buy from fisheries that have been vetted by myself or by Kenny (Belov of TwoX-Sea, a seafood distribution company based in San Francisco).
What seafood should people eat?
We have a chalkboard with specials on it. One of those boards is dedicated just to what we call “fish bits.” That’s any part of the fish that isn’t the fillet. So we’re serving collars and cheeks. We make chicharrones out of the skin. We do crispy bones. We’ve done grilled whole head. We do fish head terrines. There’s lots of parts to these fish that aren’t being eaten on a regular basis, and they’re delicious and abundant and very cheap.
How challenging is it to limit yourself to seasonal seafood?
Those are the challenges I enjoy. Working within ingredient limitations puts you in a position where you have to do something creative. If all I did was buy salmon fillet, and put salmon on 100 different sets, that would be easy and boring. Fish: Market and restaurant, 350 Harbor Drive, Sausalito; (415) 331-3474. Open daily. Cash only.