NYC Restaurant Week Hurts Sustainable Seafood

Restaurant week began as a great way to affordably introduce folks to some wonderful restaurants and chefs while boosting sales during some traditionally slow periods. Restaurant week was so successful it now is close to becoming "Restaurant Month!"

Seems like a good thing, right? Well not if you support sustainable seafood.

Restaurant week does bring in business, but with the current pricing scheme there is a lot of pressure on the restaurants to cut corners on food costs to make the program work out financially. This is especially true as many restaurant week diners do not rack up a very large liquor bill. This price pressure falls large on center of the plate proteins like seafood leading chefs to switch from higher quality and principled choices to less expensive options.

So, I have seen a dramatic drop off in our business during restaurant week (sorry weeks). Many chefs have been totally up front in telling me they just can't pay for sustainable seafood and hit their promotional pricing levels. Sad, but understandable on some level.

It used to be the restaurant week loss of business ended when restaurant week ended. This is no longer true. Chefs and restaurant owners have realized that during the restaurant week switch to unsustainable and less expensive fish that the customers just didn't care- they ate the fish and were happy. This begged the question: Why not just use the unsustainable seafood and reap higher mark-ups year round? And so it has come to be with many restaurants.

The fact is a sustainable fish and an unsustainable fish often taste exactly the same- often the unsustainable fish may even taste better. The benefit of sustainable seafood is most often not the eating experience but rather the benefits of lower toxins, healthy ecosystems, and a cleaner environment. Unfortunately these benefits get lost when the cheapest seafood choice wins.

I hope that those diners that support restaurant week hold the participating restaurants to task and ask the chef if the fish they are being served is sustainable. I also hope the restaurants and chefs recognize that their choices will decide whether our children will share in our seafood traditions.