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Search forI'll keep endangered fish on menu - Rick
Thursday, October 16, 2008, 10:00
His pledge comes with publication of a report, The Silent Seas, by the Marine Conservation Society, which warns that without action, rising numbers of Britain's ocean species face extinction.
Mr Stein, 61, who opened the first of his four seafood restaurants in Padstow, Cornwall, in 1975, was speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, where he gave a wide-ranging and candid overview of his business empire.
He told almost 1,000 people in a packed Cheltenham Town Hall that if he followed Government and fishery guidelines, he would lose 80 per cent of his menus and would not be able to keep his four Padstow restaurants going.
He questioned whether the fish stocks situation was really as bad as the Government and marine conservationists were saying.
"I don't know how to say this without people getting very stroppy with me. If I was going to stick to what they (government bodies) want, it would wipe out about 80 per cent of the species I use.
"I would be left with pollock, lots of mackerel, and herring. I couldn't run a menu with it.
"There are lots of fish which are endangered and which we are told we should not be touching – hake, cod, brill, monkfish. All these fish the Marine Conservation Society says we should not be using."
But he said there was now evidence that many species were recovering as a result of fishing boats around Europe being bought up and decommissioned.
There were signs of improvement but official bodies were still saying things were going wrong rather than acknowledging they could now be going right.
"I am not going to go to the newspapers and say this is what's now happening because someone will clobber me, but I would say that in a limited area like this, it is not all bad. It is certainly not all bad in Cornwall."
Asked if he thought the Government and fishery chiefs were worrying too much, he said "I do. There is a lot of overfishing, I don't deny that, but I don't think we are really prepared to look at signs that things are getting better."
Mr Stein admitted that as well as using fish from the endangered list, he also used farmed fish – although not in his best-known and most expensive establishment, the Seafood Restaurant.
"I do do my best. I won't sell swordfish or blue tuna and monkfish if it is clear there are none around. But with a lot of these fish, like monkfish, the quota is going up.
"I think it is not all what it appears in the newspapers."
He also acknowledged there were people in Padstow who did not like the way his business had expanded in the town – leading some to dub it "Padstein".
"Padstow is quite prosperous-looking now and quite painted and tidy... but we do offer a lot of local people all-year- round employment, which is important.
He added: "I am proud of what I do in Padstow. Of course, I only did it for my own ends – it was entirely selfish interest. But the fact is I have built up a lot of people on the back of it."
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