How we buy
BOUGHT DIRECTLY FROM FISHERMEN IN CORNWALL. CUT BY HAND IN BARNES.
From the quay
Most of what we sell is bought directly from fishermen we know in Cornwall. There is no market floor in between. The fish is graded and boxed under ice at the quay, moves by road overnight and reaches Barnes the next morning. It waits on ice, is cut by hand when you order and goes straight back onto ice. Every stage is about temperature. Cold slows everything that spoils a fish, so the whole job is keeping the chain unbroken from the quay to the counter at 18 Barnes High Street.
What we buy starts with what is actually good. A small counter never has to buy fish to fill space. If the plaice looks tired and the hake looks alive, we buy hake. That is why the slab changes daily.
The grading
How is fresh fish graded?
Two fish of the same species landed on the same day can be worth very different money. Handling is the difference. How fast it was chilled, how it was stowed, whether it sat crushed under a full box.
Buying from the same fishermen year round means we know how each crew handles its catch before a box is opened. The checks still happen every time. Eyes should be clear and full rather than sunken. Gills should be bright red and moist. The flesh should feel firm and spring back under a finger. The smell should be clean, like the sea rather than the harbour. A fish that passes on every count is the fish we pay for, and it is the only kind worth putting on ice in Barnes.
The yield
Why does fillet cost more than whole fish?
A whole round fish gives roughly half its weight back as fillet, and less once skinned. Flatfish give less again. That is why fillet looks expensive beside a whole fish on the same slab.
We cut to order and price by weight, so the difference sits in plain sight. Filleting, pin-boning and skinning are free. Cut to order also means the fillet did not exist until you asked for it. The fish waits whole on ice, where it keeps best, and is only opened when it is sold.
On the ice
What should you ask at the counter?
Everything on the counter passed the same checks before we paid for it. The slab changes with the weather and the season, so ask what stood out this morning and how to cook it. The counter at 18 Barnes High Street is open Tuesday to Saturday, 9am to 4pm, and holds a Food Hygiene Rating of 5. Order by 1pm for next-day delivery across London and the UK, free on orders over £60. Or order ahead and collect in Barnes the same day, usually ready in about two hours.
Photography: Newlyn harbour by Gareth James and Cadgwith by habiloid (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
