‘Anything you can do to an animal, you can do to a fish,’ says the Australian chef and author of The Whole Fish Cookbook
It’s 9am on a Monday morning in east London, and outside the wind and rain are crashing and bashing. Inside, a 31-year-old Australian chef called Josh Niland paces the floor impatiently waiting for a fish to arrive. He’s not especially picky what kind of fish it is, only that it is an excellent specimen, not much tampered with. But he knows that’s a lot to ask: it’s Monday after all, and the weekend’s storms would have deterred all but the most intrepid boats from going out. So Niland has called in a favour and asked Nathan Outlaw, Britain’s most celebrated fish chef, to source one for him from one of his contacts in Cornwall.
Just before 10am, a hefty, elongated package is delivered and Niland unwraps it like a child. His eyes light up: it’s a sea bass, around five kilos in weight. Its scales – its “armour” he calls it – are perfect, even the translucent webbing of the fins is completely intact, and its bright, bulbous eyes seem to follow you around the room. “I don’t think many people in London get a fish like this on Monday,” says Niland. “We don’t get a fish like this on Friday. But when you’re the king of Cornwall…”
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