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Asks Nate T, Is there a bad day of the week to order fish in restaurants?
Our head buyer, Richie Taylor (hear more from him in the video below), who’s been with the company for over 40 years, gave us the answer:
Ora King, above, is a salmon beloved by chefs around the world.
20 years ago, Anthony Bourdain (RIP, the original food influencer) taught a generation of restaurant-goers never to order fish on Mondays. It was one of the most lasting takeaways from his 2000 book, Kitchen Confidential. Today, says our fish buyer Richie Taylor, the answer isn’t quite as clearcut.
The No Fish on Mondays adage came from a time when most restaurants were closed on Sundays, meaning that any specials running on Monday were designed to move old product out before new deliveries arrived on Tuesday. But today, says Taylor, restaurants are far more likely to be open on Sundays, and orders don’t necessarily come on a fixed day of the week anymore.
The fact is, says Taylor, these days, “product availability, it’s a seven-day-a-week world now,” he says. “If a restaurant cares about a good product, they’re going to have good product no matter what day of the week it is.” If not, he says, you probably don’t want to order fish any day of the week, Mondays included.
But how can diners be sure that they’re getting the good stuff from chefs and restaurant managers who care about quality?
“You have to trust the restaurant you’re going to. If they have lousy waitstaff, lousy busboys, lousy this, I’d say their food is probably lousy, too,” says Taylor. “Does a restaurant have lousy vegetables but good meat and fish?” That’s unlikely, says Taylor. “Restaurants are usually not fussy about just one thing and not fussy about everything else.”
Looking for a restaurant that really cares about their fish? Check out the Chefs at Home recipe series on our blog, and linked from individual product pages. These chefs are all passionate about the fish they cook and serve. When they’re in the kitchen, you can bet on a good meal.
