A passion for fish

My favorite food to work with is the most versatile: fish. Fish offers a greater variety of textures and flavors than any other protein. It also has less fat. It’s the best “pedestal” for garnishes. It’s visually appealing, and it makes a better final impression and impact than meat and poultry. Offal and braised foods are what I like to eat most of all, and I like to cook them too, but fish is almost alive for me when I cook it.

The quality of the fish you buy is probably the most critical factor in how good the finished dish will be. I feel very lucky to have the purveyors I do. The seafood they send me is extraordinary. I get sea bass and halibut and cod so fresh that, at the right angle, you can see a rainbow playing across the flesh. We marvel at it. I get forty black bass that are all the same size, which is critical to the dishes at the French Laundry. The scallops are still twitching, because they were practically just shucked and haven’t settled down. For a cook, that’s an exciting thing to see.