PRESS
““Meltzer is a fast-talking, heavily bearded 38-year-old with a can-do aura.””
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Monkfish
“It’s probably one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen,” says Jeremy Sewall, chef and partner at local seafood chain Row 34. “The first guy to eat it was pretty brave or pretty hungry.” Yet it’s delicious, dense and versatile enough to hold strong flavors, “like beans and bacon, and heavier vegetables like Swiss chard — all great with it.” In summer, Sewall likes to pan fry it and serve it with a shaved fennel and arugula salad.
Where to get it:
> New Deal Fish Market, 622 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, 617-876-8227, newdealfishmarket.com
> Fearless Fish Market, 425 West Fountain Street, Providence, 401-415-8905, fearlessfishmarket.com
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Finally! The East Side has not had a real seafood market since the Fish Company morphed into a bar and grill. Now comes Fearless Fish to the rescue. This is a wonderful, established seafood market over on West Fountain Street, but it is a bit of a schlep. The big question for owner Stu Meltzer: When will Hope Street open? “Best case scenario . . . this summer. Less best case scenario . . . by the end of the year.” (And they are hiring.)
Meltzer entertained a few questions yesterday about what to expect in the new shop:
Very similar to what we have going on here. We focus on first and foremost, high high quality, fresh fish primarily, and local. And we are most excited about some of the more unique local species like black sea bass and fluke, haddock, monk fish. Right now we’re getting into fluke and tuna, we’re starting to see that in RI . . . swordfish.
And some of the specialty local fresh fish like John Dory — we love — and tilefish. John Dory is a finfish . . . a by-catch of the squid fisheries so they scoop it up when they go for squid. So they feed on squid and butterfish and other tasty things, so their flavor reflects that.
The new location will have the same freezer selection, prepared foods, and rack of tinned specialties.
So we want to bring the same thing over there, depending on what people like and respond to. My sense is that the smoked fish is going to be popular. For the Jewish holidays we brought in sablefish, smoked sturgeon, and specialty smoked whitefish.
A lot of folks come to us for sushi products . . . a lot of our fish is sushi grade . . . salmon, tuna.
The venerable Jewish deli, Davis Dairy, closed in February of 2021. Meltzer emphasized how great the Davis family had been to work with in securing the new location.
But until the Hope Street market does open, head over to the flagship store, opened in 2019, on West Fountain Street. And if you haven’t been over there lately, that street is hopping with lots of new places to eat, drink, etc.
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Stu Meltzer knows his fish and loves to talk about it. (He was kind enough to remove his mask for the photo.)
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Walking into Fearless Fish, a small market in Providence specializing in local seafood, is like walking into Tiffany’s. The showcases dazzle the eye.
There’s familiar fare, like Atlantic salmon, haddock, and sea scallops. There’s also a riveting range of fish that are relatively mysterious, curios like scup, butterfish, pollack, Acadian redfish, conger eel, and monkfish. While abundant in our waters, these so-called “underutilized’’ species — less known to New Englanders, less tasted, less in demand — are often exported to countries that apparently appreciate them much more than we do.
Most of the region’s Atlantic dogfish, for instance, goes to England for fish and chips. “It’s crazy,’’ said Chris Cronin, the chef at Union Flats Seafood in New Bedford, who prefers “unique’’ fish to the familiar. “Dogfish is pretty mild, slightly sweet with a flaky texture comparable to haddock. It takes on other flavors, and I like to serve it with citrus notes.’’
Since Fearless Fish opened in early 2019, owner Stuart Meltzer’s main aim has been to try and broaden the consumer palate. “We want to help people become more confident, to try new fish,’’ he said one noontime, as mostly younger customers streamed through the door. The pandemic-driven interest in local foods has been good for sales, he noted, inspiring more daring in home kitchens. Skate piccata? Roasted mackerel with chimichurri? The store’s online recipes and cooking lessons help to demystify lesser-known fish, as does its disclosure of catch site and means. “Fluke, Pt. Judith, dragger.’’ “Monkfish, Gulf of Maine, dragger.’’
“It’s important to me, and shared by customers, that the product is local,’’ said Meltzer.
Local seafood is easier to source than ever, according to Kate Masury, director of Eating with the Ecosystem, a nonprofit that promotes the ecological benefits of eating a diversity of fish. With the shift to local, Masury is glad to see less familiar species increasingly in evidence in markets and online businesses, at dock sales and on restaurant menus. Some, like monkfish, “the poor man’s lobster,’’ are even crossing into familiar territory.
If fishermen harvest diverse species that the marine world is naturally producing at any given time, notes Masury, it’s better for the health of the ecosystem as opposed to cherry-picking individual species, which can deplete a species, effect its predators, and send the whole system out of balance. “Supply needs to drive demand, when a lot of times our demand drives supply,’’ said Masury.
A grilled monkfish bathed in smoked tomato brodo is one of Union Flat’s most popular dishes. Cronin extols this intimidating looking fish for its hearty texture and taste. “Monkfish have teeth and eat a wide assortment of shellfish — clams, crabs, and oysters — which gives it a great flavor.’’ For fish and chips, Cronin uses hake, a flaky white fish that serves as a perfect stand-in for cod.
As many as 100 edible fish populate the waters of the northwest Atlantic. New Englanders, however, “tend to favor just a few,’’ said Masury — lobster, cod, scallops, haddock, and softshell clams are our top favorites — when “so many others are delicious.’’
With fish consumption on the rise, underfished fisheries are bound to be tapped more and more. Recently, the online store of Portland-based True Fin sold out of its “Curated Adventure Box,’’ a Gulf of Maine sampler of cusk fillet, dogfish steaks, tuna mince, monkfish, and Atlantic mackerel. True Fin’s online window, added last summer, “is making less common fish species accessible to people who can’t find them in the store,’’ said CEO Jen Levin.
Levin launched True Fin in 2019, believing that if more underfished species in the Gulf of Maine were harvested, it could improve fishermen’s wages and also capture sales from higher-end restaurants. Her vision is paying off. True Fin now ships multiple species to restaurants across the country, and chefs, Levin points out, are apt to prize Atlantic mackerel, for instance, a species that has never garnered much respect, as much as they do Alaskan king crab.
While True Fin is selling mackerel, dogfish, hake, and other less-used types to distributors and restaurants, Levin allows that those sales “aren’t yet at the volume we really need to make a difference to the fishermen.’’ For that reason, “we’re really grateful to those chefs who say, OK, we’ll give it a try.’’
According to NOAA, the United States imports 70 percent to 85 percent of its seafood, and exports large volumes as well. With more and more community-based fishermen networks springing up, it’s predicted that more seafood will stay in the community. Thus more diners might be persuaded to give the underdogs, say triggerfish or tautog, a taste.
If a fish store “puts skate in its case and no one buys it, they have to throw it out and waste fish and money. At the same time, consumers can’t buy it if it’s not available. Consumers need to be willing to try different species,’’ said Masury.
Like Masury, Jamey Lionette, who directs Red’s Best Sustainable Seafood program, advocates a radical shift, that supply needs to dictate demand and not the other way around. “What the local fleet shows up with every day is what we should be eating.’’
For years, Red’s Best has followed this model, sending whatever fishermen land to thousands of K-12 and university students in New England and New York. “If 1,000 pounds of hake comes in one day, that’s what get delivers. If pollack comes in, that gets sent,’’ said Lionette. “The chefs don’t know what they’re going to get.’’
This logical fish-before-the-cart system can provide fishermen with a steadier income, Lionette said. “And when I tell them, ‘You know what? The New Bedford schools are serving your fish tomorrow,’ they get so much more pride from that. More than if their fish was going to a four-star Michelin restaurant.’’ Red’s Best seafood program launched in New Bedford in February.
Chris Cronin refers to it as “eating in the moment.’’ “I tell fishermen, you tell me what you’re catching, and I’ll figure out how to cook it. It’s much more fun that way. There’s no fish that you can’t make delicious.’’
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Stuart “Stu” Meltzer wants you to learn about seafood. Not just try seafood, but really understand the bounty of the sea.
You don’t have to know anything before you visit him. You may never have tried grey sole or local monkfish in your life. You can ask any question you like. That’s why Meltzer chose to call his Providence business “Fearless Fish,” because no customer should be afraid to learn.
“The reaction [to the shop] has been amazingly positive,” says Meltzer, “and we’re super, super grateful for the support. Ultimately, people are looking for a high-quality product and someone to help them along with it.”
Meltzer is a fast-talking, heavily bearded 38-year-old with a can-do aura. He grew up in Deerfield, Illinois, a “very Jewish” suburb of Chicago. Once Meltzer started working in the seafood industry, as both fishmonger and salesman, he quickly learned the ins and outs of the supply chain. Meltzer also earned an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and was director of marketing for the Fortune Fish Company for two years.
“I started out in the seafood business right out of college,” says Meltzer, whose bachelor’s degree, in English literature, is from the University of Colorado Boulder. “I was buying fish from around the country and selling it to high-end chefs and retailers in Chicago. I decided to go into the seafood industry because I wanted to sell something that was good for people. I also loved food and restaurants and a seafood wholesaler seemed to fit the bill.”
In 2014, Meltzer decided to try something new. He relocated to Boston, where he got involved in design consulting.
“Basically, it’s helping companies better understand their customers and develop new products or services to serve them,” he explains. “My goal had been to open my own business, so I felt that was a valuable skillset to acquire.”
At the consulting company, Meltzer met his future wife, Rose Manning, a Rhode Island native. After three years, he returned to seafood as a distributor. He found himself in Providence on a regular basis, and he developed a deep affection for the city and the quality of life in Rhode Island.
The couple could easily picture raising a family here – and they also imagined opening their own business in Providence.
Fearless Fish opened on West Fountain Street in early 2019, and it made quite a splash. With its good-humored social media feeds and logo of a woman riding a giant fish, the new market attracted food writers from across the state. Earlier this year, the company won Best Locally Owned Seafood Market from Rhode Island Monthly.
Fearless Fish isn’t big; the one-room shop contains little more than a glass display case, a few shelves and a freezer. But Meltzer offers an astonishing range of fish, from sushi-grade tuna to triggerfish, tautog and smoked sable. Today, Fearless Fish is a haven for amateur cooks who want to broaden their palates but have no idea where to start.
“I love food,” says Meltzer. “I also love the connection – and oftentimes the tension – between the food that we eat and how we treat our environment. People worry about mercury and sustainability issues. There’s a lot floating around that creates a bit of confusion or uncertainty in people. The idea behind Fearless Fish was to alleviate some of those concerns, no matter where you are on your seafood journey.”
Meltzer is interested in many culinary traditions, but he continues to draw inspiration from his Jewish upbringing in Chicago.
“Judaism was always front and center. It was certainly a big part of my childhood,” he says. “I’m proud of that heritage. I think it guides a lot of things that I do, more than I fully realize.”
Fearless Fish carries such traditional Jewish fare as herring in wine sauce and smoked bluefish paté, and in the future, Meltzer wants to prepare delicacies like lox and kippered whitefish.
“Those are the kind of things I love,” Meltzer says. “Those are the elements of seafood I associate most with my Jewish heritage – and would hope to expand on.”
Fearless Fish is located at 425 W. Fountain St., Providence. 401-415-8905, Fearlessfishmarket.com.
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Cooking squid isn’t as intimidating as it sounds. Stu Meltzer, co-owner of Fearless Fish Market in Providence, demonstrates how to prep “dirty” squid before cooking. “Dirty is the term we refer to as unprocessed,” he says. “It’s in its whole state with the skin on, fins attached, guts in and the whole nine yards.” Fearless Fish sells Rhode Island-harvested squid that’s already been processed and frozen by Sea Fresh in North Kingstown, but they occasionally carry it in its whole form if you’re interested in prepping it yourself. Here’s how to do it from head to foot. Fearless Fish Market, 425 West Fountain St., Providence, 415-8905, fearlessfishmarket.com
Squid is classified as a cephalopod, which literally translates to “head foot” in Greek. Start prepping squid by sliding a sharp knife below its eyes to separate the head from the foot (the tentacles). Once you have separated the tentacles, remove the eyes, and look for a little round beak within the mouth. The squid uses its beak to tear its prey, but you want to remove it before cooking. It’s a little black piece surrounded by a protective membrane and it should pop out easily.
Next, remove the guts and pen. You can use a fish scaler or a fork or spoon to scrape them out. “While the fins are down, you can go over the top of what’s left of its head, and get far up into the tube, press down lightly and scrape downward,” Meltzer says. “Pull out all those guts and pen while trying to preserve the ink sac.” The pen, or quill, is a plastic-looking membrane that stabilizes the squid when it swims. The pen should come out when you’re scraping out the guts, but check back with a scaler, fork or spoon to make sure you’ve cleared it all out. There may be a small piece remaining.
Now you can remove the skin and fins from the body, also known as its mantle. Japanese cuisine often leaves the skin intact, but it’s removed in American processing. “Take the scaler, or a fork or spoon and lightly brush the skin to break it off, then get your fingers in there and pull off the skin and its fins,” Meltzer says. “Then you have a nice clean tube like you are used to seeing.”
“Now, you’ve got the tube, the tentacles are all clean, the fins are removed, and the beak is out of there.” Go in and separate the ink sac by lightly cutting it away. The ink sac is a tiny black pouch in the middle on the squid. Sometimes it ruptures during processing, but if you can preserve it, it’s only a tiny amount of ink.
Cut the tube into squid rings, or you can just grill or saute the whole tube. “A lot of people think squid is hard to cook, but it could not be easier,” Meltzer says. “Just take the rings and tentacles, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, get the pan going at medium/high heat with olive oil and saute for three minutes. Add a little lemon and lemon zest and that’s it.”
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Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island:
The façade of Fearless Fish has changed in the last few months. Before the covid-19 pandemic upended business and life across the U.S. in March 2020, customers used to linger in front of a glistening display of perfectly trimmed fish, ogling each item and considering which one to eat for dinner. Now, they line up in the parking lot, behind retractable belts like those found in airport security lines, while the shop’s staff goes inside the shop to retrieve orders that customers have placed by phone or online. Instead of learning about new seafood species by pointing to the bright display and asking, “What is that weird-looking thing?” the shop’s customers now point to a printed list and ask “What is that weird-sounding name?”
It’s not quite the same as it was before. But what hasn’t changed, says owner Stu Meltzer, are the business’ core values. “Our mission is to do our part to help turn this country into a seafood eating nation,” Meltzer declares. “We do that by helping people gain confidence buying fish, cooking fish, eating fish, and trying new types of fish.”
Fearless Fish, located on Providence’s West Fountain Street, was only a year old when the pandemic began. Meltzer, a 37-year-old transplant from Chicago, worked for Chicago’s Fortune Fish, Boston’s Pangea Shellfish, and a handful of seafood retail shops across Massachusetts before fulfilling his lifelong ambition to start his own business in February 2019.
Providence has been a perfect fit for Meltzer’s style of engaged and interactive fishmongering. He describes his customer mix as intellectually curious. “Part of that is Providence: it’s a very academic town. We get a lot of professors and graduate students. And part of it is just that’s how Providence is. People are intellectually curious. It works, because we’re big on sharing the info on how things are caught and the inside baseball on the fish business.”
For example, Fearless Fish sends out a biweekly email blast to its customers. In a recent edition, Meltzer offered an overview of the regional fishery management councils that manage our nation’s federal-waters fisheries—including the controversial subject of why Rhode Island doesn’t have a voting seat on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. In another edition, he described how fishmongers calculate the yield of edible product from a whole fish.
“Seafood is kind of like wine, where there’s so much you can learn,” Meltzer reflects. “I‘ll be learning stuff forever.”
That’s why an important part of Fearless Fish’s approach involves “having a wide variety of different species—some that are better known and more expensive, like a bluefin tuna or a sea urchin—and things that are lesser known that people have less familiarity and comfort with—like cobia, thresher shark, sea robin, skate, or monkfish,” Meltzer adds. “There’s a lot of things that people get worried about or sketched out about with fish. ‘How do I cook this? There’s bones in this whole fish; how do I deal with that? What is sea robin? What is scup?’ Fearless Fish is built around addressing those concerns or issues that people might have.”
When the reality of the global pandemic settled over Providence in March, says Meltzer, “Initially it was freaky. Nobody knew what was going on.” Taking their cue from nearby restaurants, he and his staff chose to close Fearless Fish for two weeks. But when the two weeks were over, the staff decided they weren’t comfortable returning to work, so Meltzer and his wife Rose spent another three weeks hiring and training three new employees.
When it finally did reopen, the shop only sold frozen fish. This helped customers avoid frequent shopping trips. But by summer, the shop was stocking its usual variety of products. Fearless Fish has also established a presence at several farmers markets across Providence and has reinstated a weekly fish share pickup program that counts 160 residents of Providence, Newport, Cranston, and Warren among its subscribers.
If anything, Meltzer says, “Business has been better for us than before. I attribute it to the restaurants being more limited. People can’t go out like they did, so they’re eating at home more. That works for us. Plus, we’re a small shop and with the outdoor pickup, I think people feel it’s safer. Both of those trends have helped us.”
Hiro Uchida was one of the customers picking up dinner outside the store on a recent September afternoon. Uchida, who grew up in Japan but now lives in South County, is a self-described seafood thrill-seeker. But before Fearless Fish entered the scene, his Rhode Island seafood experiences left him wanting more.
“I wanted fresh seafood,” Uchida explains. “Preferably sushi-grade. I wanted a variety of fish, including unfamiliar and/or local species. I wanted a sense of seasonality -- seafood made available when it is in season. Lastly, I wanted excitement when you find the fish that you were not expecting to find (recent example: cobia). Back home, nearly all fish stores had these. But here, even in Ocean State, I was unable to find one—until Stu's Fearless Fish Market opened. Ever since I first visited Fearless Fish in April 2019, I got hooked. Can't live without it!"
When Meltzer thinks about the future of Fearless Fish, he envisions multiple storefronts, an expanded fish share program, and a greater farmers’ market presence. But his most ardent and vexing desire is to assure a constant supply of high-quality local fish for his customers.
“I’ve been thinking about ways to do that,” he says. “Some combination of quality incentives and traceability.” If each boat’s catch was tracked with a label as it made its way through the supply chain, discerning local chefs and retail shops like Fearless Fish could select their seafood from the boats producing the highest quality. And fishermen would receive a reward for this quality in the form of a higher price.
“I want to crack this,” Meltzer insists. “I want good, consistently reliable product. The customer does too. They’re willing to pay for it. This seems like such a big opportunity for the fishermen do to better, for them to make more [income]. It will take cooperation from everybody: fishermen, dealers, retail. But it’s being done in other places around the world.”
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If you’ve never roasted a whole fish in the oven, it’s about time you try. Fearless Fish Market specializes in selling local species on the West Side of Providence. Some are familiar to most Rhode Islanders, like the wild striped bass, bluefin tuna and local bay scallops, while others are lesser known, such as the Maine sea urchin, John Dory, sushi-grade fluke and razor clams.
Owner Stu Meltzer also stocks other underused or under-loved delicacies such as Atlantic mackerel, scup, pollock, sea robin and more. “I love talking about fish and helping to educate people. That’s the idea behind Fearless Fish: helping people increase their confidence in buying fish, cooking fish and trying new things.
“Our website even has a section that includes fish cooking methods, recipes and how-to videos for deboning whole fish and shucking oysters,” Meltzer says. Seafood is now available for pre-order on the website and the market also offers contactless pickup. “Already we’ve seen it working. Customers have loved trying all sorts of new local species that they were not aware of before along with new formats, such as whole fish.”
Meltzer provides easy instructions for said task, which is so simple it doesn’t require a recipe. Stuff the cleaned and gutted fish with lemon slices and fresh parsley, coat it in extra virgin olive oil with salt and pepper and roast it in the oven at 375 degrees for fifteen minutes for every one-inch of thickness. It should be cooked to 145 degrees. I tried it with two whole scup and the results were delicious.
“The reason why that whole roast tastes so good is because you get that fat and collagen from the bones and it gets in the meat and it’s harder to overcook,” Meltzer says.
The fishmonger says Fearless Fish was two years in the making as he narrowed down choices for the location between Boston and Providence. He worked in other fish markets, including New Deal Fish Market and the Fishmonger, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Kyler’s Catch Seafood Market in New Bedford. He also spent time working at fish wholesaler and distributor Fortune Fish Company in Chicago while attending the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He also spent time at Pangea Shellfish, a Boston-based oyster distributor that owns and operates an oyster farm in Duxbury, Massachusetts. He then entered the design world in Boston to learn the practice of human-centered design, and it was there he met his wife, Rose Manning, and decided to return to seafood.
“Ultimately, I decided on retail because I’ve found that quality and product knowledge is often lacking at supermarket fish counters. In addition, supermarkets and some markets don’t often carry the interesting local species that are available to us in Rhode Island,” Meltzer says. “I thought there was opportunity to do better.”
Though his wife is originally from Point Judith, the couple settled on Providence for the Fearless Fish location because they were smitten with the city’s quality of life and they saw huge potential in the burgeoning food scene.
“I absolutely love Providence. I thought this is perfect. It’s so much easier to live here than Boston. It’s much more affordable, it has great restaurants and creative energy,” Meltzer says. “On top of that, there’s excitement around food here, and it’s the Ocean State. For a fish market, I was like this is the place. This is where we’re going to do it.”
Now, Fearless Fish is an around-the-clock operation. Twice a week, the market sends out emails to let subscribers know what is available to start the week and for the weekend. The newsletter also shares some behind-the-scenes fish industry talk, such as how quality is not always determined by when the fish came in, but how it was handled long before it arrived at the shop.
“For example, does a boat gut and ice the fish properly or does it bake in the sun on the boat deck? This can be the difference between ‘okay’ fish and great fish,” he explains.
In addition, Fearless Fish makes daily social media announcements (as well as frequent website and online store updates) of its list of available seafood, from the usual suspects of smoked salmon, fluke, scup and redfish to the more uncommon uni and razor clams. He also sells whole squid, called “dirty squid,” while spilling a few squid secrets this writer never knew.
“A lot of squid might be caught here, frozen, and then sent to China for processing, and then frozen again and sent back,” Meltzer says. “We sell fresh squid or a squid that is once frozen [dirty] and we thaw it here and clean it, and the quality difference is amazing.”
Meltzer works with local oyster farmers and the Ocean State Shellfish Cooperative that deliver shellfish, and he secures other seafood from dealers who source directly from fishermen.
On the day we visited, Andrade’s Catch of Bristol dropped off Narragansett Bay littlenecks dug hours earlier by local quahoggers. The goal is to buy seafood from dealers that source directly from fishing boats.
“Buying directly from fishermen is not so easy for a number of reasons,” Meltzer says, explaining how the fishermen would have to package, sell and deliver their own fish for that direct experience, so it makes sense to work with dealers. “We try to be as close to that connection as we can. Another reason is the volume that a lot of fishermen bring in would be too much for us to take. It helps us to get in a relatively small number of high-quality items.”
Not only does the market stock the star of the show, but it also has cooking supplies and cookbooks on hand for making your favorite fish dishes, including sushi. Shelves of panko crumbs, fish stock, Kewpie Mayo, ginger, onion, lemons and more help shoppers create restaurant-quality meals at home.
In recent months, the shop has started a fish share program where customers sign up to get a weekly or bi-weekly package of seasonal, local fish (filleted or whole) delivered to a location of their choosing. The program includes wild-caught fish landed in one of our New England ports each week, which may be species like Acadian redfish, hake, pollock, monkfish, skate wing, black bass, flounder, sea robin and more.
Meltzer says Fearless Fish market wants to make it easier for people to eat more fresh local fish, so it’s teaming up with other local food and wine shops to serve as convenient pickup points. The program is also allowing Fearless Fish to expand beyond Providence into Newport and Warren. Some of the new pickup points include Stock Culinary Goods and Campus Fine Wines in Providence, Newport Wine Cellar and Gourmet and Prica Farina in Warren. Expanding beyond the Providence storefront will also help customers try new types of fish they might not choose themselves and it’s also a way to increase fish consumption.
“We are planning to expand around the state — mostly around the bay. We’ve found that partnering with small, independent specialty food and wine shops has been a win-win,” says Meltzer. “Pair that with the fact that we are bringing people local fish and we have a nice symbiotic Rhode Island system going.”
The cost of the fish share is $18 a week for two servings (about one pound of fillet or two pounds of whole fish) and $36 a week for four servings of fish (about two pounds of fillet or four pounds of whole fish). Every week, fish share participants will also receive an email with species details and cooking recommendations. Customers can put a weekly share on hold with two days advance notice.
But that’s not all they’ve been up to.
“We wanted to do some sort of consistent philanthropic program from the beginning with Fearless Fish; COVID and the George Floyd incident just pushed us over the edge to get it going,” says Meltzer. He chose two beneficiaries: the Amos House, an organization that offers services and programs for Rhode Islanders experiencing homelessness and poverty; and the Nonviolence Institute, a Providence-based organization that fosters peace by employing Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence.
“We started with donating $1 per pound of fish sold on the week of June 2nd. Since then, we’ve decided to donate 1 percent of sales from the rest of June to the Amos House and the Nonviolence Institute,” he says.
Going forward, Fearless Fish will continue donating 1 percent of sales to organizations that the owners believe are doing good work toward causes they believe in, especially local organizations.
“The environment is important to us, so organizations doing environmental advocacy will certainly be selected, but also social support/justice organizations,” Meltzer says. “We plan to select an organization or two to donate to for each month to make the effort have a little more impact.”
In the meantime, they will keep supplying the local community with good, fresh, local fish. For those interested in the market’s curbside procedure, you can order online Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. There is a one-hour lead time for online orders, but you can also call ahead to place an order at 415-8905. Walk-up orders are also accepted, though the market is not allowing customers in the shop at the time of publication.
425 West Fountain St., Providence, 415-8905, fearlessfishmarket.com.
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NARRAGANSETT — Hold a sea urchin in your hand and it’s impossible to figure out what part of its hard, spiny body you’re supposed to eat. Chicken of the sea, this is not.
But there’s a big demand for urchins as a foodstuff, particularly from Japanese sushi restaurants, which crack the animals open and serve their golden, custardy insides raw over rice.
“Imagine what a clean ocean smells like and then translate it to taste,” Coleen Suckling says of eating the delicacy popularly known by its Japanese name “uni.”
A scientist at the University of Rhode Island, Suckling wants to tap into the global uni market and thinks that a local species of urchin that to this point has never had any commercial value could one day become an aquaculture species cultivated in the Ocean State.
She is working with a Norway-based startup called Urchinomics that has developed a specialized feed for urchins as part of its bid to boost global demand for the animals. Suckling, an assistant professor of sustainable aquaculture, and her students are testing the feed on Atlantic purple sea urchins, a small kind found in Narragansett Bay and elsewhere off the Rhode Island coast, to see if it will fatten them up and make them more appealing to the restaurant industry.
Suckling is studying urchins not because she thinks they’re so fascinating — although she does and isn’t shy about professing her affection — but because she believes they represent an emerging seafood product that can be sustainably raised in Rhode Island and elsewhere around the world.
In previous research, she found that urchins are more resilient than other sea creatures to warming waters and to acidification, which is caused by the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide — two of the biggest impacts of climate change on marine systems.
And in her reckoning, with many wild stocks of other species overfished, in decline or threatened, urchins could represent a new frontier in aquaculture.
When you come across uni on a sushi menu, it’s generally described as roe, suggesting that it’s the eggs of the sea urchin. It’s not.
Uni is actually the urchin’s gonads, its reproductive organs that are divided into anywhere from two to five fat, curving lobes and occupy much of the space inside its shell. They are the only part of the urchin that is edible.
They are found in both male and female urchins, which use them to release clouds of eggs and sperm cells into the water column that combine to spawn new urchins.
Sea urchins are invertebrates related to sea stars and sea cucumbers. Found in every ocean on Earth, they get their name from the Latin word for hedgehog. Some of the approximately 950 species of urchin are green and look like cacti, while others are larger and bear a passing resemblance to porcupines.
The creature’s sphere-shaped calcium carbonate shell, or “test,” has five-fold symmetry, known as pentamerism, which means it’s divided into five equal parts. Spines, which in some species can reach a foot long, cover the shell. The spines are attached by ball-and-socket joints that allow them to move.
Urchins use their spines in combination with transparent tube feet to creep along the ocean floor and graze on seaweed and other organic material with powerful mouths located on the underside of their bodies.
They can have voracious appetites, clear-cutting all the plant life around and leaving so-called “urchin barrens” in their wake that are devoid of other animals. Urchins have decimated marine habitats in Norway, Japan, northern California and other parts of the world. In British Columbia, Canada, the disappearance of kelp forests has been traced back centuries to the beginning of the fur trade and the extirpation of sea otters that preyed on urchins.
In California, it’s one particular species of urchin that has been the culprit: the purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), a Pacific Ocean native that is not to be confused with the Atlantic purple sea urchin (Arbacia punctulata) found in Rhode Island.
After disease killed off a type of sea star that is its main predator, the purple urchin proliferated on the West Coast, pushing out red urchins that are a commercially attractive species, destroying kelp forests, and causing a closure of the fishery for abalone, a highly valued sea snail that lives among the kelp.
Even after exhausting their food supply, purple urchins don’t die. They go into a dormant state, living on but pushing the pause button on reproduction until they can get more to eat. With no use for their gonads, the organs shrink, leaving the urchins worthless as a source of uni.
That’s where Urchinomics comes in. The company wants to take these zombie urchins, put them on a high-nutrition diet so they grow big and fat, and then, in just a matter of weeks, harvest their uni. The aim is to bring purple urchin numbers under control, as well as populations of other problem urchin species, by stimulating the overall market for urchins as food.
“By understanding and developing new economic incentives, we can remove overgrazing sea urchins and turn them into a luxury gourmet seafood product, help restore kelp forests, encourage fish and marine biodiversity, sequester carbon dioxide [in restored kelp forests], and create meaningful full-time jobs in rural communities,” the company says on its website.
Prints of urchin shells hang from the walls of Suckling’s office. Ceramic and metal figurines of more urchin shells are arranged on one corner of her desk. And on a shelf are actual urchin shells that she’s collected on dives that have taken her from Norway to Scotland to Israel.
She fetches off a shelf the shell of an Antarctic sea urchin, a species that she studied during her doctoral work at Cambridge University in England. It’s the size of a softball.
“This one looks like it was on steroids,” Suckling says.
Her first encounter with an urchin wasn’t so positive. She was working at a shrimp hatchery in Mozambique after finishing graduate school when, on a day off, she waded into the water near a beach and stepped on one.
“But I’m not one to hold a grudge,” she laughs.
Now, she speaks with wonder about everything from the animal’s free-floating larvae, which are evocative of Chihuly glass sculptures, to the way an urchin eats using a one-of-a-kind pentagonal dental structure with the poetic name “Aristotle’s lantern.”
But these days she is most interested in what she can do to get people to eat more urchins.
Global urchin landings peaked in the mid-1990s but have fallen by more than a third since then with the collapse of some prized wild stocks, according to a European study that concluded there’s an unmet demand for the animal. The bulk of the $200-million market is in Japan, but urchins are also consumed in France, New Zealand and Chile.
The vast majority of urchins are still harvested from the wild. The green urchins that are most commonly found in the Northeast are caught by divers in Nova Scotia, Maine and northern Massachusetts during a season that stretches from September to early April. (When the animals start spawning as temperatures warm, their gonads can shrink, making them unsuitable for consumption.) The fisheries in the region were once booming, but have dropped off in recent years as urchins have become harder to come by.
The animals are being farmed in places like Norway and Japan and the idea has also been explored in Maine, Australia and Canada. Suckling has worked in Scotland on integrating urchins into salmon aquaculture operations along with seaweed. Fish farms can produce a lot of waste that can taint waters and cause algae blooms. Seaweed will absorb some of the excess nutrients and urchins can eat any food pellets that the fish miss and would otherwise break down and foul sediments.
Rhode Island has a robust aquaculture industry that has seen its annual sales steadily grow from only $83,000 in 1995 to more than $6 million in 2018, but the industry is dominated by oysters that for the most part are grown in the Washington County salt ponds, and it’s been difficult to diversify. Bay scallops, quahogs, mussels and soft-shell clams have had their ups and downs. There have been abundant harvests of kelp, the latest product to be tested by growers, but the local market for it has been weak.
All the investment concentrated in oysters means a blight or bad storm could have devastating consequences for aquaculture as a whole in Rhode Island. It’s not unprecedented. Decades ago, a combination of pollution, disease and the Hurricane of 1938 wiped out the once-booming oyster harvests in upper Narragansett Bay.
While there are concerns about the vulnerability of oysters and other shellfish to acidifying waters that inhibit shell development and to the spread of diseases linked to warmer waters, urchins are robust animals. Suckling believes they could help position the state’s industry to better withstand some of the changes that oceans are undergoing.
“They have a flexible physiology to cope,” she says. “If you give them time, they can adapt.”
As a food, uni is low in cholesterol, high in protein, and full of antioxidants. Suckling has had it as sushi, perched atop a mouthful of rice, and, more recently, on a seaweed salad at Matunuck Oyster Bar, in South Kingstown.
Once, after diving with a colleague in France, they cut open urchins on the beach and spread their uni on fresh bread. It tasted pretty good, Suckling says.
Stuart Meltzer plucks two urchins from a pile arranged on ice in the display case of Fearless Fish Market.
Meltzer opened the store on West Fountain Street in Providence a year ago and, as the name suggests, he specializes in selling lesser-known and, some might say, stranger types of seafood, all of it sustainable. On this evening, salmon and fluke fillets sit alongside whole Acadian redfish, razor clams, locally grown oysters and, for $12 a pound, live green sea urchins collected by divers in northern New England.
Meltzer doesn’t know exactly where they were caught. The people who dive for urchins are protective of the few grounds that can still yield good numbers of the animal.
“They’re very, very guarded,” he says.
He turns one of the urchins over and easily cuts into it using kitchen shears. He removes the bottom of its shell to reveal plump masses of uni nestled inside. One by one, he picks them out with a fork. He rinses them in a saltwater solution, dries them on paper towels, and separates them into sample cups. They curl like tongues and their surface is covered in tiny bumps like taste buds.
He takes one cup himself and hands the others to two visitors. Eat up, he urges.
The uni has a subtle, salty taste, a buttery consistency and the mouthfeel of tofu. It’s not slimy or fishy. Meltzer, however, pulls a face.
“That one didn’t look so great,” he says, making note of its weak color and less-than-perfect texture.
That’s one of the problems with wild-caught urchins. The quality is variable and the customer doesn’t know if they’ve gotten a good one until they’ve opened it up.
Another issue is availability. If seas are too rough, divers can’t get out to their favorite spots. If urchins were farmed in Rhode Island, Meltzer says, he would “absolutely be interested.”
He gets a delivery of anywhere from 60 to 100 wild urchins every few weeks from the late fall to the early spring. And he always sells out.
He has customers who’ve asked him to call or email whenever he gets a delivery. They generally serve it raw like sushi. But it can also be used to make a pasta sauce, which, because of the amount that’s needed, can “get pretty pricey,” Meltzer says. He’s had it before at a restaurant.
“It’s got that sweetness and a little bit of brininess,” he says. “There’s a lusciousness to it.”
Meltzer opens a second urchin and this one looks better, embodying the qualities that have led some to describe uni as the ocean version of foie gras.
“Nice color, healthy full lobes,” he says. “That’s an A-grade.”
He prepares them and divides them up for round two.
On a regulatory level, farming the Atlantic purple sea urchin in Rhode Island wouldn’t be a problem, says David Beutel, the longtime aquaculture coordinator for the state Coastal Resources Management Council. Because it’s a native species, there are no concerns about introducing foreign organisms into state waters.
“Over the long term, I think there’s potential,” Beutel says of the concept of farming urchins.
But he has other questions, not least of which: Would anyone be willing to be the first to grow them?
It might be someone like Jules Opton-Himmel, the owner of Walrus and Carpenter Oysters, which has operations in Ninigret Pond, in Charlestown, and in the Bay near Jamestown. The idea of raising urchins has crossed his mind, but he’s never seriously considered the feasibility of it.
“I do love eating uni,” Opton-Himmel says.
Four years ago, his business was the first in Rhode Island to try growing different types of kelp. He’s since given up on seaweed because the economics never worked, but he’s always interested in diversifying, in part because of climate change.
“We’re not seeing the immediate effects right now,” he says. “But what about in 20, or 30 or 50 years?”
Dale Leavitt, an aquaculture expert at Roger Williams University, sees another benefit in growing urchins. He grew up in Maine, where green urchins were treated as a nuisance because they would clog the entrances to lobster traps or get inside them and eat the bait.
When the Japanese market for uni was discovered, people were only too happy to see the prickly pests go. By the mid-1990s, the wild urchin fishery in the state was second in value only to the lobster fishery. But, in a counterpoint to what’s occurring in the Pacific, overharvesting has thrown ecosystems off balance as seaweed in places has grown out of control without urchins to feed on it.
Leavitt, an associate professor of biology, believes that farmed urchins could take the pressure off the region’s wild fishery and help restore the natural equilibrium.
“What we always say in aquaculture is you never start growing anything unless you can sell it,” he says. “With urchins, the market is pretty well-established. It’s just a matter of getting the technology to produce at the level that would be required.”
Inside a lab at URI’s Bay campus, in Narragansett, fish tanks are filled with several hundred Atlantic purple sea urchins that were collected from around the mouth of Narragansett Bay.
Suckling grabs a pair that have used their sticky feet to latch onto the side of one of the tanks that is filled with seawater circulated through from the Bay. They’re more of a brown than purple color and their spines don’t feel too sharp. These urchins also aren’t nearly as large as the ones that Meltzer sells.
Wild urchins can have undersized gonads, or they can lack the vibrant coloring that’s expected by consumers. Commercial harvesters in other countries will often collect urchins and feed them a diet enriched with carotenoids, the yellow and orange pigments that give carrots and pumpkins their distinctive color.
Three marine biology students — Anna Byczynski, Max Zavell and Alli McKenna — are conducting a three-month food trial under Suckling’s supervision to see if the same thing can be done with Rhode Island’s urchins. Think of it like a feedlot, only smaller, and for urchins instead of cattle or pigs.
For a commercial operation, something similar could be done on a larger scale in ocean waters using cages of the kind found in oyster or scallop farms.
The students are monitoring water quality and weighing the urchins. They are even measuring how much waste they produce. The idea is to optimize how much to feed the animals so they get to the right size while still keeping costs low enough for a commercial venture. (Beutel also wonders if the urchins can over time be selectively bred for size.)
Suckling acknowledges that the research is still in an early stage. She knows there’s a lot more work that has to be done before the first urchins could be grown in Rhode Island. As she looks forward, she keeps a larger goal in mind.
“I’m trying to help secure seafood production for the future,” says Suckling.
akuffner@providencejournal.com
(401) 277-7457
On Twitter: @KuffnerAlex
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Fearless Fish seafood market on the West Side of Providence is bringing more fish to more people. The shop has started a fish share program that allows customers to sign up to get a weekly or bi-weekly package of seasonal, local fish (filleted or whole fish), delivered to a location of their choosing. The fish share program includes wild caught fish landed in one of our New England ports each week, which may be species like Acadian redfish, hake, pollock, monkfish, skate wing, black bass, flounder, sea robin and more.
Fearless Fish market simply wants to make it easier for people to eat more fresh local fish, so it’s teaming up with other local food and wine shops to serve as pickup points that are more convenient for the shopper. The program is also allowing Fearless Fish to expand beyond Providence into Newport and Warren. Some of the new pickup points include Stock Culinary Goods and Campus Fine Wines in Providence, Newport Wine Cellar and Gourmet, Prica Farina in Warren and Cork and Brew in Pawtuxet Village, coming later in March. Expanding beyond the Providence storefront will also give customers the opportunity to try new types of fish they might not choose themselves and it’s also a way to increase fish consumption without even having to think about it.
“We are planning to expand around the state (mostly around the bay). We’ve found that partnering with small, independent, specialty food and wine shops has been a win win,” says Fearless Fish owner Stu Meltzer. “Pair that with the fact that we are bringing people local fish and we have a nice symbiotic Rhode Island system going.”
The cost of the Fearless Fish fish share is only $18 a week for two servings (about one pound of fillet or two pounds of whole fish) and $36 a week for four servings of fish (about two pounds of fillet or four pounds of whole fish). Every week, fish share participants will also receive an email explaining which fish they will be getting with recommendations for how to cook it. You can put a weekly share on hold, if you give them three days advance notice. Find out more information here.
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Cast a Wider Net and Explore the Many Pleasures of Lesser-Known Fish Species
From July until about Halloween, we eat a lot of scup at home, pan-seared in butter. The kids like it crispy. We also eat blackfish and striped bass, fluke, bluefish and black sea bass. Last winter I became obsessed with butterfish and whiting, and found myself cooking them again and again, unadorned, until I figured out the best way to prepare them.
I like eating fish as a regular thing; nothing fancy, nothing planned. Just simple plates of food, kind of like eggs in the morning.
This, of course, still takes some work—not so much the cooking, but finding the fish. They don’t jump from the sea into my frying pan. And even living a few miles from Point Judith, close enough that I can almost smell the rich bouquet of bait barrels, fish, steel, diesel and gulls, these particular fish are not guaranteed. I need to hunt, source and ask around—which takes work.
A FISH ECONOMY
As Rhode Islanders, we live amongst a huge privilege of fish, a variety of tastes and textures, which rival any other coastal state in the country. In 2017, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Rhode Island landed 84 million pounds of seafood. That’s a staggering amount of food. So much it drives a whole fish economy—boats, trucks, processors and consumers. The list of species runs from quahogs to monkfish and everything between. But the big four for volume here in Rhode Island are two species of squid followed by butterfish and scup.
And, much of our fish leaves Rhode Island. It always has. For species like scup, whiting and butterfish, just about all of it does. Scup and whiting go to New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore and much of the butterfish heads to Japan and China. Squid—our poster species—is sold across the country.
Many of these market channels have been set in place since at least the 1970s. There is history there, momentum. In a sense, Rhode Island’s boats and fish merchants have focused their energy catching and selling fish that other ports like New Bedford, Boston and Gloucester didn’t much bother with.
While those ports focused on codfish, scallops, pollock, haddock and flatfish, Rhode Island developed markets for squid, scup, whiting and butterfish. High volume, cheap price.
For years the hub for all this, Point Judith, was known as a “swill” port. Most of us living in Rhode Island hadn’t a clue this commerce was even happening. If you were to follow a box of scup off a fishing boat from Point Judith to New York, you would get a sense of “the scup economy,” and the varied races and multi-ethnicities who eat and enjoy these fish.
So why is it tricky finding these smaller species in Rhode Island fish markets? The fish are abundant and available year ’round. Tons of them literally get landed and eaten—just not here. And even with more familiar Rhode Island species like black sea bass, fluke (also known as summer flounder) and striped bass, it can be a challenge.
“Most of our fish markets don’t reflect what is locally available,” said Kate Masury, director of Eating with the Ecosystem, a nonprofit that promotes a place-based approach to sustaining New England wild seafood. “For fish like scup, whiting and butterfish—they can be very hard to find.”
EAT LIKE A FISH
Eating with the Ecosystem recently published a report called “Eat Like a Fish,” which assessed the availability and diversity of seafood in the New England marketplace. The program centered around the work of 86 citizen scientists, people spread out across all the coastal New England states. For six months in 2017, from May to October, these individuals went to their local fish markets in search of fish. Each week, they tried to locate four varieties of randomly selected local seafood.
“What we found was that we can do a better job in our fish markets,” said Masury. “Forty-seven out of 52 total species were found less than 50% of the time. Thirty [of the 52 species] were found less than 10% of the time.”
For Rhode Island fish markets, here is some of the breakdown: Squid was found 62% of the time it was searched for; scup 10%; fluke 22%; striped bass 10%; butterfish 2%; scallops 75%; whiting 0%.
“One interesting thing that came out of the study was that our citizen scientists, who were not necessarily fish eaters in the beginning of the study, became fish eaters by the end. They were forced to try lots of different kinds of fish. They really got into it,” said Masury.
There are a few Rhode Island markets that do make a push to carry local fish. Fearless Fish Market in Providence has a display case that reflects what Rhode Island boats are currently landing. On any given day, Fearless has scup, fluke, striped bass, whole squid or black sea bass. Many of the fish are sold whole, which is also a welcome shift.
“I want people to try new things, to be fearless in their fish choices,” said store owner Stuart Meltzer. “Whole scup is a staple of mine. Customers are enjoying it, too. I’m committed to supplying locally landed Rhode Island fish. I think it’s important.”
Most Americans are not fish eaters. We eat more pork, chicken and beef. And when we do eat fish, we eat shrimp, salmon, codfish, halibut, ahi tuna and tilapia. These fish are generally sold filleted and the price is kept low by the supply from a much larger world market.
In contrast, our local fish, when you do see them in the case, tend to be more expensive, especially for species like striped bass, fluke and black sea bass—which tend to be lower in catch volume, higher in price. With butterfish, scup and whiting, it’s the opposite. The price tends to be lower, the volume higher—but the odd thing is, they are even harder to find.
Much of what we yearn for in seafood is tied to our cultural roots as well. For example, my wife, who was raised on home-cooked Portuguese cuisine in East Providence, grew up with a different idea about fish. When I started bringing whole whiting home and cooking them on the grill, her fingers tore those fish apart, expertly removing the bones in one sweep, like it was nothing. For other friends of ours, that process of deboning a small whole fish for dinner would be an Instagram moment—a novelty.
GROW AN APPETITE FOR SMALLER FISH
Yet it’s those smaller whole fish that are important to the future of our fisheries. Smaller fish tend to be fast growers and lower on the food chain. I’ll admit I still buy salmon from Norway and haddock from Iceland for the family, but I also try to blend in lots of local seafood.
“We need young fish eaters–kids who are brought up on fish,” said Masury. “We also need to immerse ourselves in buying and cooking fish. I want to see even small amounts of scup, butterfish and fluke in our local markets. As consumers, we need to ask for them; get a small demand going. And by spreading out our fish choices, we actually eat more sustainably. But fish markets only stock what they are going to sell. So we need to ask for it and create the demand.”
Things are slowly improving; each year Rhode Island squid is making itself better known, inching its way up the fish market food chain.
And the lesser knowns—scup, whiting, butterfish—those will take a campaign until we find them more readily available at the fish counter. They are tasty once you understand a few things about how to prepare them. In fact, a number of chefs around the state are exploring ways to serve these fish, and the number is growing. I recently had a whole whiting at Plum Point Bistro in Saunderstown served with herbs on a wooden platter that blew me away. It looked beautiful, all done up—and it tasted delicious.
Most of the millions of pounds of scup, whiting and butterfish are being eaten by people in urban centers far from here—in dishes often tied to their cultural heritage as something simple and good to eat, not necessarily haute cuisine. I want to eat and enjoy these smaller species, too, plus I’d like to see more on the menu when we’re dining out. In the meantime, my kids will fight over the crispy edges of the pan-seared scup. For me, that’s the true taste of satisfaction.
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Laden with local seafood, the cases at Fearless Fish Market offer a peek at what’s swimming in the waters off Rhode Island’s coast. Wild striped bass, bluefish, scup, sea robin, jumbo black bass and squid, all caught by Point Judith boats, are regularly on ice at the market.
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We used to have to beg our local fishmonger to carry species like scup, tautog, monkfish and Rhode Island-raised oysters, but now there’s no question that what’s for dinner came from area waters. Tuesday through Sunday, Fearless Fish lists what it has in stock and where it came from on social media. Browse the shelves for convenient cooking ingredients from the common ginger and lemons to the more obscure Kewpie mayonnaise and Portuguese sardines. Never prepared whole fish before? They’ll take you through it and get you hooked for life.
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Rhode Island’s Newest Fishmongers Encourage Cooking Outside the Box
Finding a good seafood recipe, purchasing quality fish and cooking it properly can be a daunting and nerve-wracking endeavor, even for the most confident home chef.
Enter Fearless Fish Market in Providence’s West End, the brainchild of co-owners Stuart and Rose Meltzer. The couple has combined their knowledge of seafood with house chef Nikhil Naiker’s ability to develop flavorful yet simple recipes for an accessible fish market experience. Add to it the intrigue of a daily-changing inventory and you have a market that customers of all cooking abilities are returning to almost daily. From butterfish and dirty squid to sea robin and scup, the market’s eclectic offerings do not disappoint.
Since the conceptual phase, Fearless Fish Market has been designed to focus on what customers want. If someone calls looking for monkfish liver or sushi-grade sashimi, Stuart, who goes by Stu, says they’re happy to find a domestic variety to fulfill a customer’s request.
“We’re all about having fun with it and listening to the customers,” he said, adding that they post their “daily catch” on Facebook and Instagram each day. “So far, the community has been very welcoming to us, and we’ve found, right off the bat, that people are coming in looking for something different and more adventurous.”
Prior to opening Fearless Fish Market, Stu, 35, spent six years working for a fish wholesaler in Chicago that sold fresh fish to high-end restaurants. Later, he worked in three different Massachusetts fish markets to better understand how a well-run market operates, as well as for an oyster distributor with an oyster farm in Duxbury.
“I realized that there was a need for a fish market that encouraged confidence, addressed the concerns people have about environmental issues and contamination and generally helped customers become more knowledgeable,” he said. “I care a lot about how food impacts our health and the health of our environment. I believe very strongly in fish as a healthy food source and one that is environmentally low impact.”
For George Tollefson, already a loyal customer, it’s the staff ‘s extensive knowledge about seafood and their creativity and presence on social media that makes Fearless Fish Market stand out from the crowd.
“Every day, I check to see what’s come in fresh, which inspires my meals throughout the week,” he said. “When I encounter ingredients I haven’t prepared before, like live Maine sea urchin, salmon collar or razor clams, I feel confident bringing them home with cooking advice and recipes from their in-house chef, Nikhil Naiker—one of my favorite local chefs.”
Nikhil’s recipes, which are available both in store and online, are a huge hit with customers, especially when it comes to cooking the lesser-known varieties of fish.
“Rose and I usually have ideas for a recipe and then we do some research, and I make a few versions before we have a final recipe,” Nikhil said. “We like having fun with it and customers seem to love it.”
Rose said they’ve noticed that most fish markets reflect the neighborhood they are located within.
“Our community seems to be into the weirder stuff both in types of fish and recipes they like,” she said with a laugh. “It’s encouraged us to be even more adventurous in the recipes Nikhil develops, even in the prepared foods we make like fish stock and fish chowder and in the types of fish we offer.”
The awareness component of owning a fish market is also incredibly important to Rose and Stu. So whether they’re talking with customers about the sustainability of purchasing American-caught fish or explaining why fish is a healthier, lower-impact food than other animal proteins, it’s all about keeping the customers informed and confident in their purchases.
“We’re big on education and really want people to eat more fish, cook more at home and try something new,” Stu said. “It’s all in our name: We want our customers to be fearless, confident and happy when it comes to eating and cooking fish.”
Fearless Fish Market
425 W. Fountain St., Providence
401.415.8905 • FearlessFishMarket.com
@FearlessFishMarket
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Providence seafood lovers rejoice — there is a new fish market on the scene. Fearless Fish opened on West Fountain Street a few months ago, and behind the counter is owner/fishmonger Stu Meltzer, who loves nothing more than helping customers learn the ins and outs of preparing and cooking fish and shellfish they might have previously found intimidating.
Jamie Coelho wrote up the new market in Rhode Island Monthly covering Meltzer’s extensive and varied experience in the field and a simple how-to on the joys of preparing a whole fish.
And like Coelho, I was unaware of all the processing and transportation involved in the squid I frequently buy . . . pretty much the opposite of the “locavore” trend.
“A lot of squid might be caught here, frozen, and then sent to China for processing, and then frozen again and sent back,” Meltzer says. “We sell fresh squid or a squid that is once frozen [dirty] and we thaw it here and clean it, and the quality difference is amazing.”
The day I was at Fearless Fish, the wild, fresh, dirty squid, caught off of Pt. Judith, was going for $9.50/lb., but I went home with some excellent softshell crabs.
Meltzer’s earlier experience included time working at a fish wholesaler and distributor in Chicago which provided a unique perspective on the American seafood business. It is easy for Rhode Islanders to think that we are the hub of the seafood universe, but that is not the case. During my visit last week I asked Meltzer how his Chicago experience had shaped his tastes. What follows is a lightly-edited, very short interview on the topic.
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Meltzer: Chicago was a good place to learn because being in the center of the country, there weren’t quite the seafood traditions there that there are in the northeast or other seafood-oriented regions, so the chefs have the freedom to just try whatever. So we would get stuff in from all over the country . . . the gulf coast, the northeast, everywhere. O’Hare airport was highly accessible so it was a great learning experience in all different types of fish.
Daily Dose: Is there anything that you regularly imported to Chicago that you wish you could get here but it just isn’t practical. What are we missing out on?
Meltzer: One thing is sturgeon. Sometime you would see inland . . . but a lot of time we would get that wild or farm-raised out of the Pacific northwest. Or like sablefish is another one . . . or cobia is one which is caught in the gulf or off the coast of Florida, that it just doesn’t make sense to bring it. But those are fish that I really do like. No one’s asked me that.
[And I’m not sure what made me ask it, but it does pertain to Mr. Meltzer’s vast knowledge on all things swimming and clinging. BC]
Daily Dose: Anything else you would add?
Meltzer: We are all about getting people to eat more fish and helping them to do that. Helping to make dinner easy, how to cook it, trying different species . . . we’re here to help.
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Fearless Fish is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Meltzer posts updates of the catch-of-the-day on Facebook etc.
Meltzer buys oysters locally and from around the region. And that’s a bigass octopus tentacle there in the corner.
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Providence's newest fish market, Fearless Fish Market, is a delight and is a true example of what is old can be new again.
Stuart Meltzer, a former fish industry expert and business school grad, has brought back the old local fish market model with a lot of new twists and unique selections.
Located in the West End at 425 West Fountain Street in Providence, Meltzer's shop offers the known, but also a variety of fresh selections.
Meltzer discussed why his shop is environmentally conscious and focused on issues of sustainability. He told the story that most squid caught off Rhode Island waters are landed at Galilee, then frozen, shipped to China. Those squids are cleaned and cut and shipped back to markets like Rhode Island for retail sale.
At Fearless Fish, they buy the squid and prepare them in Rhode Island for immediate sale after cleaning.
The shop offers tautog, robin fish, and 'dirty' giant squid.
Meltzer says he wants to be not just a "must" store for the neighborhood, but also the entire city.
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Roasted whole fish is often found on restaurant menus, but it isn’t as commonly cooked at home. And that’s too bad, because it can be relatively affordable and easy to prepare, said Stuart Meltzer, owner of the Fearless Fish Market, a new seafood shop on the West Side of Providence.
“It’s harder to overcook than a fillet," Meltzer said. “And it actually falls off the bone quite easily.”
But, yes, you do have to be careful not to eat the bones, he added.
In his shop, Meltzer is trying to empower his customers to be a little more adventurous with cooking seafood. Beyond preparing whole fish, he suggests working with octopus and squid, two other restaurant favorites that aren’t as frequently found on home cutting boards.
To help, Fearless Fish chef Nikhil Naiker, a Johnson & Wales graduate, is often available at the store to offer instructions and tips.
For our newest Small Bites cooking video, Naiker demonstrated how to roast a whole Point Judith scup, served with chimichurri sauce. The recipe works just as well with black bass, which Meltzer also sources locally.
Meltzer opened Fearless Fish in February, after working for several years in the wholesale seafood business and then for retail shops. At the store, you’ll find an ever-changing inventory of fin fish and shellfish, including monkfish, razor clams and Rhode Island oysters. He uses Instagram to regularly update customers on what’s available when.
With an eye toward sustainability, Meltzer obtains most of his catch from wholesalers who buy directly from local fishermen in nearby ports: Point Judith, in Narragansett; New Bedford; and Boston.
“A lot of the fish that we sell, like scup, Acadian red fish, hake, pollock, don’t really have the brand name cachet of, say, tuna, sword, or cod,” Meltzer said. “But they’re good fish at a good value, and we want to spread the word about that.”
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