Crustacean Connection

In the heat of service, the limited space of the kitchen occasionally displaces two people – the superfluous stagier and, when Ross is actively working, the Chef de Cuisine. We find ourselves relegated to the back kitchen either bailing out under-prepped cooks (most often me) or getting an edge on the next day’s work (most often Cathal). In these quiet moments of business, I have had numerous opportunities to ask Cathal some of my “nonessential” questions.

Last night while I was slicing and shaping baby potatoes, an after-hours shipment of John Dory arrived and I was able to witness in “real time” the value of local purveyor connections. When the shipment arrived, Cathal was busy shelling four crates of fresh Dublin Bay prawns. Crustacean lovers in the States will know that these prawns are a rather exclusive commodity. And yet here I was literally surrounded by their shells. Earlier, I had risked idiocy and asked Cathal if prawns, like other fish, had a season. Peeling the little beasts out of their crisp orange skins, Cathal explained that prawns are regularly available in the shallower bay waters around the Irish coast. Because, however, they are the business of small boat fishermen on day trips, they become almost impossible to procure when the weather is bad. If small boat fishermen see bad weather or a bad forecast, they will not even venture the trip. When the weather is mild, prawns can be as cheap as 8 euro per kilo, but when the waters get treacherous, prawn prices may double overnight. Having a purveyor tipoff is crucial if you want to capitalize on the brief and irregular prawn “seasons.”

And now here we were with crates of prawns stacked in the kitchen and crates of Dory marching into the cooler. Clearly, we had a purveyor connection. This became my next line of probing. “So Cathal,” I queried, “Are you out there with every other chef just looking for the best market price, or do you have a go-to ‘fish guy’ at this point?” There must have been some subconscious strategy in my choice of words, because Cathal was quick to distinguish himself from “every other chef,” explaining his fish connection in depth. Brian is a personal friend of his, based nearby in Howth. Over the years Cathal has grown familiar with Dublin tastes and knows which fish he can really move off the menu. “Dory sells, turbot sells, bass … scallops … prawns – I can hardly get them in fast enough.”

As a friend, Brian will call Chapter One first, offering a decent price for the largest portion of his catch. And in return, we offer Brian security and reputation. He knows that if (like today) he gets in an abnormally large catch of Dory, he can ring Cathal and still get a decent price for the extra fish. He also knows that when he tells his other customers “Oh I sold 4 kilos of Dory to Chapter One the other day,” he will soon be selling Dory to three or four other restaurants as well. I couldn’t imagine a more mutually beneficial partnership!

As I moved in on Cathal’s prep counter to help scale Dory and pick prawns, I was freshly inspired. Me and these fish … we seemed “meant for each other.”