Tinned fish is becoming almost as popular in the UK as it is in Europe, with a glut of restaurants and suppliers with a can-do attitude and a wish to spread the word about this tasty and economical way of preserving the best of the seas
Restaurants and wine bars are catching on to the benefits of tinned fish, realising the potential of a versatile product that saves on waste and time in the kitchen.
Tinned fish is revered in Europe. There is even a canning museum, the Museo de la Conserva, in Vigo, north-west Spain, that has been created by the Spanish Association of Canned Fish and Seafood Manufacturers to raise awareness of the processed seafood sector and to showcase the important milestones of the birth of the Galician canning industry.
Kathy Siddell, the restaurateur behind Boston-based Saltie Girl – the restaurant serving tinned fish and seafood that was launched in Boston, US, in 2016 and has hit the headlines since its UK opening in London's Mayfair last November – says she was partly inspired to create her brand after a trip to Barcelona.
Varun Talreja, the restaurateur behind Greek restaurant Meraki in London, has partnered with Siddell to open Saltie Girl in London. He says: "We're offering something original here at Saltie Girl, providing every iteration of seafood. It's not just an oyster bar – although you can come in and get six oysters and a glass of rosé for £25 – you can also have a can of tinned fish. This could be a sharing plate of sardines in escabeche [fried in olive oil, then marinated with vinegar, garlic and spices] from Catrineta in Spain, served with a trio of salts, crunchy butter, pickled piparra peppers, piquillo pepper jam and French bread."
Chef Richard Turner, who began his career at Le Gavroche in London under Albert and Michel Roux Jr, followed by La Tante Claire under Pierre Koffmann, acted as a consultant on the Saltie Girl London menu with Siddell and Talreja. He says: "It was an exciting project, working alongside Kathy, Varun and head chef Marcin Szott. We are using seafood from the UK, of course – the best in the world – but basing our recipes on the Boston restaurant. The tins are a big part of that. We have 106 tins, with multiple flavour profiles."
Saltie Girl also stocks Rockfish-branded tinned mackerel, created by Mitch Tonks, owner of the Seahorse restaurant in Dartmouth. It has also ‘borrowed' a monkfish dish from the restaurant, which is served alongside hero dishes such as the lobster waffle and the caviar grilled cheese sandwich, prepared with 20g Exmoor Royal Beluski. It also stocks cuttlefish and mussels as well as tinned products from Sea Sisters Cannery which, until recently, canned all its fish products in a factory in Hackney, East London (it has now moved to Dorset).
Tin can alley
The Rockfish tinned fish collection was launched in November 2021 and has been selling on Rockfish menus since early 2022. Tonks's desire to set up the canning project was inspired by many visits to Asturias. "I'd always wanted to produce a range of tinned fish, having been to the factories in Spain and seen how fantastic they are," says Tonks.
David Menendez Fernandez of Spanish food and ingredients importer Mevalco worked with Tonks to set up the process of canning British fish. He explains: "I took Mitch and [Sabor chef] Nieves Barragán Mohacho on an inspiration trip to see suppliers in Asturias and we took a 400-mile detour to visit Güeyu Mar, the only guys who do grilled fish and then tin it.
"Mitch had this idea of putting fish from Devon, Cornwall and other British seafood in a high-quality preserve, so they are caught at their best and available all year round. This trip was the catalyst to making it happen and to see how it is done in Spain, Portugal, Italy and, on a lesser scale, in France: to position tinned fish as a high-quality staple in our cupboards and menus, rather than as poorer product just for stuffing sandwiches.
"As there are almost no tinneries in the UK, and the real knowledge is in the north of Spain, we enlisted Jose Peña, a fourth-generation seafood preserve industrialist in Galicia, to produce Mitch's recipes for Rockfish. Some of the recipes are produced by another smaller and beautiful tinnery in Asturias, El Viejo Pescador (the Old Fisherman), in Tapia de Casariego, a fishing village. The tinnery is run by a young couple who have taken this old industry and revitalised it."
Rockfish tinned fish is sold in every Rockfish restaurant and via the group's website, where it is promoted as "seasonal catches kept at their best by preserving them in tins. With the seas around Britain offering some of the best fish in the world, our tinned seafood captures that quality, preserving British-landed fish in peak condition, as good as the day it was caught". The range includes bay mackerel in olive oil, Brixham calamari in ink sauce, Lyme Bay mussels in escabeche and Mount's Bay sardines in chilli.
Tonks says: "We sell them as a retail product and in their tins as bar snacks in the restaurant. I believe we were pioneers of tinned fish in the UK and we were certainly the first to take quality British fish and distribute it like this. We are big believers in sustainability and it supports the fishing industry when there are gluts of fish."
A taste of Hackney
Canning in the UK is rare, but Sea Sisters, founded by Charlotte Dawe and Angus Cowen in honour of their daughters, opened in Hackney in east London in 2020. Cowen had previously worked as a chef at restaurants including Trullo, Padella and Rochelle Canteen in London, and says he learned "that simple, flavoursome, ingredient-led food is often the most enjoyable". He adds: "A big motivator for me was to be able to get out of doing restaurant kitchen hours [with two young children], but to still have a creative outlet and be able to give people my food. What we've done is scale up, serving thousands of dishes at a time while still creating recipes with incredible ingredients."
The couple set up Sea Sisters during lockdown with the goal of taking quality British seafood with a clear provenance and creating original ideas for tinning it with maximum flavour. They offer a subscription service in four-, six- and 12-month packages with a recipe card and offer varieties including salt pollock, mussels nduja, mussels with chilli and garlic, smoked rainbow trout, cockles and cuttlefish, selling from £10 to £12.
Dawe explains that the UK canning industry is small, but has had lots of support and encouragement from European canners and other UK suppliers, including Tonks and the Tinned Fish Market, an online seafood delivery site.
"My family are Greek," says Dawe. "We've always eaten a lot of Mediterranean food and fish is a strong feature in all our diets. When we were researching our dreams and aspirations around creating our own range of tinned fish, we quickly found there wasn't anyone doing this in the UK. Sowe were on a mission to produce the best range of British fish that's been locally sourced. We use what's local, what's abundant and what's quality."
Saltie Girl continues to be full most evenings and the retail sales are "a bonus", but it's the colourful branding and the visual appeal of the wall of tins that help them sell.
Siddell says it's the food of the future – and perhaps she's right.
Where to buy tinned fish
Mevalco www.mevalco.com
Rockfish www.therockfish.co.u
Saltie Girl www.saltiegirl.com/location/saltie-girl-london/
Sea Sisters Cannery www.seasisters.co.uk
The Tinned Fish Market www.thetinnedfishmarket.com
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