The Independent

May 11, 1991

 

When the boat comesin, Rick will be there

Emily Green visitsa restaurant where the produce leaps out of the sea and into the pan

 

 

 

HECTORING about thescandalous state of our seafood - stinking markets, greasy chippies and frozenfish fingers - is every bit as unlikely to convert Britons to fish- lovers as blusteringby a frazzled teacher is to reform a chronic prankster. Nope, stuff the finger-wagging. The remedy will have to be appetising.

 

Tactic one: serveseafood fresh and well-seasoned in a modern, pretty room with good wine.Nothing complicated or stuffy. Reinforce the message with an enticing,informative cookbook written in plain, engaging English.

 

Only one Britishrestaurant, the 16-year-old Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, north Cornwall,practises such an agreeable brand of proselytising. Founding chef, 44- year-oldRick Stein, simply likes fish. No sense of worthiness drove this laconiccharacter to the quayside. In fact, it was the repeated impact of a fisherman'sfist.

 

After travelling theworld as a teenager and taking an English degree at Oxford, Stein landed up inCornwall running a mobile disco. The disco found a home in a disused granary onthe harbourside of the north Cornish fishing village of Padstow, which is whenthe trouble started, as Stein recalls: ''I bought the building with a partner,neither of us realising that Padstow is full of fishermen who are quiteaggressive when they're drunk.''

 

Stein was twicehospitalised as a result of brawls. By the time the police closed it after oneheaving year, he had already jacked in floorshows for fish cookery, running asmall seafood restaurant on the building's first floor. Disco demobilised, hequickly moved the restaurant downstairs and crowds flooded in.

 

Here Stein taughthimself how to cook. The novice had the good sense to keep it simple. ''We usedto grill and fry and serve lobster cold.'' He reckons he made only one bigmistake. ''I went to catering college. They taught all kinds of nonsense. For awhile I was making scallops mornay and all that stuff, till I grew out of it.''

 

His kitchen is now asprofessional as they come. Big, well planned, well equipped, well staffed. Thismeans less sweat, less swearing. Staff like it. His sous-chef, Paul Sellars,has been there seven years. His arrival, from a string of professionalkitchens, briefly intimidated the self- taught proprietor. Still, if unsureabout a dish, Stein's refrain will be ''What do you think, Paul?''

 

Whatever hisshortcomings in the ways of the classical kitchen, no working chef in Britainknows more about decent fish than Rick Stein. He does not envy inland chefs,dependent on sluggish suppliers. His problem, however, is being offered toomuch of a good thing.

 

He sees a lot of primeseafood, straight off the boats. Take 4pm last Monday: a lad appears with acrate of scrambling brown and velvet crabs. Stein buys them. Three hours later,a wiry chap in a fluorescent green mac pulls up outside the kitchen in aSierra. In the back, a red plastic laundry basket brims with shiny Dover sole,skate, a lobster and a bag of disembodied crab claws, hauntingly stillpinching. The fisherman leaves the car running. The message: buy now, buy fast.

 

Keeping fresh fishselling, as opposed to rotting, is the bane of meat-oriented kitchens. Here theflow is smooth. There is always a rich fish soup, the stock sweetened withcracked lobster shell, and the larder is never short of fish stock. What therestaurant does not use goes to a delicatessen the Steins run in the village,and they hope to open a fish and chip shop. Menus are rewritten daily.Inclusion of a cheaper set menu means fish that needs to move fast can.

 

The waters off Padstoware particularly good for Dover sole. Stein loves the fish. ''Perhaps nothingcould illustrate our attitude towards cookery better than sole. I would farrather be known for serving the freshest sole simply cooked than for rollingit, stuffing it, pinning it, poaching it, masking it, glazing it and turning itout looking like anything but what it is,'' he writes in his Glenfiddichaward-winning book, English Seafood Cookery (Penguin, pounds 8.99).

 

He is, however, aserious thinker when it comes to flavour. A brave move was putting sushi on themenu, listed as raw fish. He uses salmon, brill, scallops, monkfish, bass,shark and red mullet, slicing the flesh thinly then garnishing with spiced soysauce, wasabi (a green Japanese horseradish paste), ginger and pickled rootvegetables. It sells.

 

No fish is overcookedand many are shown the simplest and most satisfying of treatments: a charcoalgrill fuelled with real charcoal. Its singular smoke strays pleasingly. Thetrick is answering bland fish with sharp flavour without getting bogged down incatering college fancifications. Here the kitchen shows that it is more thansimply a well-run fish larder.

 

Take monkfish, thatsqueaky, dense ''poor man's lobster''. Monday it was larded with smokedpancetta, rolled in a dust of semolina, garlic and rosemary, then sauteed.Thick, moist cod fillets were baked atop a rich mound of deeply sweated mincedgarlic and onion, then simply garnished with julienned bay leaf and lemon zest.Nam pla, an intense Thai fermented fish sauce, is discreetly used in stocks andsauces. Soups are accompanied by a fiery rouille, fresh olive- oily croutonsand grated parmesan.

 

Perhaps the most importantStein signature is a brand of practical patriotism. He will not fuss aroundwith imported fish: exotic tropical puffers have no place in his kitchen. His''bouillabaisse'' will not have the essential Mediterranean fish rascasse.Rather, it might contain weever, John Dory and red mullet. Them that wants, hesays, can call it ''Padstow Fish Stew''. An ongoing frustration is thecustomers who often want fish that is not running, or that the boats have notbrought in, and who feel vaguely cheated. This goes against quality. Stein buyswhat is freshest.

 

Then there are thefish, like grey mullet, that suffer worse PR problems than Nancy Reagan. Tarredas a sewer-loving scavenger, grey mullet, insists Stein, is a well flavouredand firm fish, good for bouillabaisse and grilling. Likewise, he has troublemoving gurnard, reduced to the lowly status of a ''bait fish'', and he wishesmore people appreciated the versatile, richly flavoured herring.

 

The Seafood Restaurantis not the place for sophisticated vegetable cookery. The likes of wiltedspinach and cabbage, and decent matchstick chips might figure. Jill Stein,Rick's wife, has a temporary boycott on carrots, though the kitchen is thinkingabout crossing the picket line.

 

Mrs Stein is much morethan temporary debunker of the carrot. Co-proprietor, she oversees one of themost pleasant dining rooms in England. A large airy space, its walls arewhitewashed and hung with bright paintings. This is not the place for sullen''special occasions'': the feel is modern and joyous. Above the restaurant are10 handsomely appointed rooms, some with harbour views.

 

The restaurantattracts one of the most ardent restaurant-goers in the South-west, winemerchant Bill Baker, who likes to eat before he sells. He sells good wines. Sodo the Steins. Little of it is cheap. All of it is worth it.

 

Copyright 1991Newspaper Publishing PLC.