Restaurants boycott Chilean sea bass

Dining: Local chefs starting to pass on Chilean sea bass

By Mike Dunne -- Bee Food Editor
(Published 6:56 a.m. PST Wednesday, Mar. 20, 2002)

What's not to love about the Patagonian toothfish?

Don't you just love the name alone?

In an underseas thriller movie -- if there were such a genre --

it would play the Godfather, a menacing primal presence prowling

the ocean depths with an air of brooding invincibility.

You look at a picture of a Patagonian toothfish and you think you must be looking at a fossil -- jutting, fleshy jaw, big dark eyes, fins long and spiky. It's beautiful, in the same way bats are beautiful.

But some people don't think it's very beautiful, beginning with that name. In a flash of perverted marketing acumen, "Patagonian toothfish" overnight became the sensation "Chilean sea bass." Marlon Brando one day, Brad Pitt the next.

This transformation occurred in the late 1980s, when Patagonian toothfish began to be hauled from waters near Antarctica, landing as pricey Chilean sea bass on the plates of fashionable restaurants here.

Chilean sea bass isn't even a member of the bass family. But its delicate, satiny, moist and adaptable white flesh grew so fast in popularity that environmentalists fear it is being overfished. Worried that its existence is jeopardized, they've called for restaurant chefs and diners to boycott the fish.

Under the catchy slogan "Take a pass on Chilean sea bass," the campaign is racking up impressive gains in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Napa Valley, with such prestigious restaurants as the French Laundry, Hayes Street Grill, Mustards Grill, Chez Panisse, Boulevard, Farallon, Oliveto, Fringale and Bacar pledging to not serve Chilean sea bass.

In Sacramento, the few chefs who offer Chilean sea bass are only now getting word that the fish is at risk, but generally they are reacting fast to stop ordering it.

Jim LaPerriere, executive chef at Slocum House in Fair Oaks, hadn't heard of the boycott, but said he doesn't prepare Chilean sea bass often and likely will avoid it altogether now. "There's plenty of other fish in the sea," says LaPerriere.

Wendi Mentink, executive chef of Bidwell Street Bistro in Folsom, who has been serving Chilean sea bass as an occasional special over the past few weeks, also just learned of the boycott, and said she would sign on. "In order to preserve the wildlife, it definitely won't return," says Mentink.

Doug Eby, executive chef at Zinfandel Grille along Fair Oaks Boulevard, says he's struggling with the issue. He doesn't serve Chilean sea bass often, but when he does it's popular, and so far none of the restaurant's clientele has objected to its availability. "I don't feel comfortable using it frequently, so we're using it less, but when we do serve it there hasn't been any decrease in popularity," says Eby.

Other chefs say they avoid Chilean sea bass for reasons other than the boycott.

Randall Selland, executive chef of The Kitchen, doesn't serve it simply because he doesn't like it. Also, he prefers to prepare seafood his guests aren't likely to find elsewhere, and Chilean sea bass is just too popular for his repertoire.

Andrew McCoy, executive chef at Scott's Seafood Grill & Bar in Sacramento, says he hasn't served Chilean sea bass for the past six to eight months, but he dropped it primarily because it was getting too expensive -- $12 to $15 per pound -- though he now also supports the boycott.

Local seafood distributors say the boycott has had no impact on their business so far.

"We're selling as much as ever, but it usually takes six months after something like this starts on the East Coast to reach here," says Sam Wong, general manager of American Fish and Seafood Co. (formerly Hemingway's Seafood) in West Sacramento. Wong says he is selling "a couple of thousand pounds" of Chilean sea bass each week within 140 miles of West Sacramento, with 60 percent of the sales to restaurants.

Jerry Jones of Mahoney's Seafood in San Francisco, which also provides fish to Sacramento restaurants, says just a few have stopped taking Chilean sea bass. He's still distributing it -- about 100 pounds a week -- but indicates he's sympathetic with the boycott.

"The fishing industry is a lot like the lumber industry -- nobody steps in and does anything until the last tree is standing," says Jones.

Monstrous fishing vessels equipped with high-tech tools to track fish are responsible for increasingly large catches, and will continue to endanger one species after another, he fears. "The fish don't have a chance," says Jones. "Believe me, if we stop selling Chilean sea bass they'll just come up with another kind of fish to go after."

The National Environmental Trust in Washington, D.C., which is organizing the boycott, has assembled and released a report documenting the decline of the Patagonian toothfish, which dwells in the frigid waters of Antarctica at depths of about a mile and a quarter. It can live up to 35 years, grow to 7 feet long and weigh 200 pounds.

No one knows for sure how depleted the fishery is, the report notes, but tracking of the catch between 1996 and 1998 off Africa's Cape Horn found the average "catch-per-hook" dropped from three pounds to 1/3 pound, a possible indication of overfishing.

The estimated legal landings of the fish has grown from slightly more than 5,000 metric tons in 1993-'94 to more than 15,000 metric tons in 1999-'00, says the trust. What's more, for every pound of legally caught fish, an estimated five pounds are hooked illegally.

While several nations concerned about the ecosystem of the Antarctica area have joined the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the group's efforts to protect Patagonian toothfish have been ineffective because sanctions are weak, policing is difficult and only member nations are required to abide by its regulations, says the trust.

Diners hooked on seafood have several more environmentally sound varieties to choose from, say both the trust and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which also urges consumers to avoid Chilean sea bass. Their favorable lists include Alaskan halibut, Dungeness crab, New Zealand cod, Atlantic sea bass, wild salmon, mahi-mahi, black cod, albacore, squid and farmed rainbow trout, striped bass, catfish, mussels, oysters, sturgeon and tilapia.