This has been the experience of Robert DeMasco, who reinvented his Brooklyn restaurant supply company, Pierless Fish, to make home deliveries to housebound civilians last month. Mr. DeMasco said that after a somewhat rocky transition, business had been brisk. His new customers, he said, are even buying things that many restaurants won’t, like fish collars.
“I probably sold 30 pounds a day of collars,” he said. “I bought shad roe. I ran out in a day, and I had 60 pounds. I was like, really? You guys know what this is?”
In addition to the dried anatomical scraps it markets as pet treats, Pierless has also been offering Spanish mackerel, skate, silver dory and blue catfish. All have sold out.
Cooks stuck in lockdown have also been eager for shelf-stable products like smoked salmon, finnan haddie, salt cod and even one product that none of Mr. DeMasco’s restaurant clients will touch: frozen fish.
He said he had received a rave review for his two-pound boxes of frozen squid from Jean-Georges Vongerichten, a longtime customer who, when his restaurants are open, rarely orders so little of anything.
In the old family headquarters on Ninth Avenue, Mr. Rozzo has also been surprised by how willing people are to take a flier on some strange aquatic specimen. “People want a challenge to create dinners with,” he said. “They can’t go to a restaurant, so they’re creating the excitement at home.”
In one day, the improvised Rozzo shop sold 100 pounds of drumfish from the Gulf of Mexico, which doesn’t often swim as far north as Chelsea. All the octopus Mr. Rozzo draped over ice as a conversation piece? Sold.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/dining/seafood-fish-coronavirus.html
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