The restaurateur behind The Seahorse restaurant in Dartmouth and the Rockfish restaurant group has created Rockfish Seafood at Home, which launches on 5 January.
Seafood at Home gives customers direct access to Brixham Market where they can see up-to-the-minute information on the catch as it is being landed throughout the morning. The market will be open from 6am-12pm, enabling customers the ability to purchase fresh seafood direct from the boats for delivery straight to their door the following day.
The service will also be able to offer a variety of fish cuts that aren’t typically seen on fish counters or in other delivery boxes. including T-bones, chops, and ‘cote de boeuf’ cuts, alongside tails, cheeks, and specially-prepared children’s portions.
Fish and seafood will change daily depending on what is landed, but options will include monkfish, cod, sea bass, gurnard, brill, john dory, dover sole, cuttlefish, scallops, and crab. Customers can also sign up to the online market’s ‘notify me’ alerts, where they will be notified when a boat with that specific catch lands, giving them the chance to order their favourite fish the minute it leaves the boat.
Fish will come from Rockfish’s own The Rockfisher boat as well as local fishermen landing their daily catch. It is then immediately cleaned, portioned, and packed directly next to the quay before being packaged in speciality designed boxes.
“For too long the fish supply chain has meant that getting our hands on really fresh fish is only possible for those living by the sea. For the rest of us, our choices are what is available pre-packed and ‘fresh’ from the supermarkets, severely limiting not only our choice but the quality and provenance too,” says Tonks, who began his career in the food industry as a fishmonger more than 25 years ago.
“By changing the process entirely, Seafood at Home will instead bring the joys of the market – finding the best quality, fresh British seafood – to everyone, in the end hoping to help us Brits eat more seafood, better.”
"As a rule, in the UK we don’t appreciate the bounty of seafood available to us. A huge proportion of what we catch off the British Isles is exported, and in its place we import from across the world, which is heart-breaking when you think of incredible tasting, high quality seafood our fishermen are able to produce on a daily basis. Not only does British seafood taste incredible, but it also plays a vital part in feeding the population and providing jobs and security to our fisher men and women."