Sustainable seafood at Via Matta

This menu looks marvelous. With more bad news daily about our oceans, it's great to see chefs harnessing their creativity to introduce us to new, sustainable seafood. Can't wait for this dinner!

I would wonder about the actual sustainability of several of the items listed, since there is no clarification attached to any of the fish. For example, if the tuna is pole caught then it is probably a good choice, but if it's not, yellowfin is also overfished. The pole fishing method leaves more tuna in the water, and actually is better on the resulting flesh of the fish. Branzino is European seabass which is farmed, and whether or not it was sustainable would depend on what farm it's from, and how they did the farming (problems include over-crowding, waste management, escapes, and other environmental impacts). If the Scottish salmon is from Loch Duart, they do say their salmon is sustainable. You could question the merit of importing farmed salmon all the way from Scotland, when Cooke aquaculture is raising salmon in Maine and just to the north in New Brunswick using comparable methods.

You raise good points, Stephanie. I had similar questions, particularly on the yellowfin, and touched base with Via Matta before posting about the dinner. I didn't speak with chef Mike Pagliarini directly but was told he is careful about sourcing in general, not only on this occasion. The folks at the restaurant stood by their claim that all of the fish are responsibly sourced. I did not get exact details on the provenance of each species, however. As for importing the salmon, they made no claims to this being a fuel-efficient dinner, just one focused on sustainable and responsibly sourced fish. ;)

I plan on getting the scoop, since I host Teach a Man to Fish (the sustainable seafood blog event) each year, it wouldn't do to have me attend and not get to the bottom of the issue of sourcing. While MSC has certified one salmon farm, the issue of whether it is "sustainable" overall is still open to debate. Depending upon whose estimates you use, it takes between one to three pounds of fish to create one pound of farmed salmon. Some estimates go even higher. Tuna is pretty problematic but for small troll or pole and line caught methods. See Wild Planet Foods for info. Check the Leather District Gourmet for follow up later this week!

Be sure

As I suspected, no salmon farm has ever been certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). They do nothing so far in aquaculture, and this is a very important point because MSC certification is a very powerful sales tool. Also, the conversion ratio for farmed salmon is about 4 pounds of fish feed to one pound of flesh. If you ever have any questions, you can always talk to some at Monterey Bay Aquarium (mbayaq.org) or Blue Ocean Institute (blueocean.org), or if you're in the trades, visit seafoodchoices.org.

I tried to leave this info yesterday but mysteriously the comment did not post...?
http://www.msc.org/track-a-fishery/certified. They (MSC) have certified the Alaskan salmon fishery and I share your concerns about the salmon at this dinner. Have been scouring the Browne Trading website for info.

The estimates of how many lbs of fish it takes to produce one lb of farmed salmon for sale range depending on whose study you follow from 3 -6 I've seen as high as 9. Disease and waste, sea lice, antibiotic use, it's all very problematic. Alaskan salmon is by def. wild so it's really the only sustainable salmon in my opinion.