CHAR: Niall Sabongi

Gone Fishing

ALTHOUGH we are surrounded by water in Ireland we don’t feel the love for our fish as deeply as other countries with the riches that accompany vast coastlines. Historically, fish was something the Catholic Church said you should eat on a Friday, but only really as a substitute for meat, so Friday’s fish had penitential rather than indulgent associations.

When I was growing up in the 80s my dad would roam the local Offaly rivers and brooks catching brown and rainbow trout. The treatment it got was a very thorough frying and if he was feeling exotic, a bit of lemon juice. It was simple and delicious, though as kids we took it for granted. Even though it was coming from a few hundred metres away, preparing fish felt alien, something we were a little unsure of. Maybe the feeling that cooking fish was scary led Ireland to embrace processed fish products; orange fish fingers and the rather more sophisticated Donegal Catch breaded frozen fish pieces that fulfilled every family’s Friday obligation.

But our appetite for fish is resurging. Niall Sabongi is a chef who runs a sustainable seafood wholesales. He also owns Klaw and Klaw Poké, two casual dining spots in Dublin, and the bright and bustling Seafood Café where we met, as well as running a sustainable seafood wholesale company. He wants to change our attitudes towards fish. I asked him why he thinks we haven’t always taken advantage of the seas and oceans around us. He points to the famine of the 1840s. Exploitation of our seas by the British was one thing, but the loss of generations of fish-related technical skill and knowledge, through death and emigration, was far more detrimental to the industry.

Niall Sabongi

Photo by George Voronov

“From very early stages the British had fleets all around the coasts and we weren’t allowed to fish them. Fishing nets were one of the first things that were sold, to buy meagre food to feed families. Everyone that had a boat during the famine left on the boat. With that kind of brain drain, we lost a lot of our knowledge of the sea.”

Niall’s approach to changing minds is practical, and convincing. The Seafood Café offerings are full of flavor; cheeky, with a lot of personality and a lack of fuss. I asked Niall where he saw his restaurants on the spectrum from casual to fine dining and he said, “Oh, casual. To the point of neglect”, laughing. Totally untrue; you’ll be well looked after, just in an familiar and informal way. Fundamental to how Niall works.

Photo by George Voronov

“I worked in Michelin restaurants and I love all that. It’s such dedication, it’s brilliant. But seafood, I’ve always just loved grabbing a few oysters and a beer. In Ireland you could never do that, it was always the white tablecloths and the brown bread and butter and the waiter and the wine list. It was always very expensive and very posh. By taking the posh out of it, all the frills away, by using kitchen towels - it makes it more accessible and open and more Irish.”

Back to Dublin’s Seafood Café and the crab was just in, being prepared behind the counter in front of us. We ate the white, pure, almost fluffy crab meat in a taco. There was a salmon one too and most interestingly, a taco with raw gurnard, soft, delicate and ceviche like. We also noshed some saltfish croquettes, hot and fluffy fried potato balls, crispy on the outside with a hint of tangy sumac. Everything we ate was exploding with fresh flavours.

Niall points to the dried white fish, used in the croquettes, hanging above like you might, more traditionally, see in Spain or Portugal. The Irish version, as old as the hills, is called washboard and is made with ling. Niall thinks it has a lot to answer for, despite the unappetising name.

Washboard came into existence to align with the teachings of the Catholic Church. People needed to eat fish every Friday but were too poor to afford fresh produce hence the salted, dried variety.

“It would be caught and salted in Galway and then transported by horse and cart in the lashing rain to Leitrim,” Niall tells me. “By the time it got to Leitrim it would be stinking and rotten and soggy and horrible... That’s why I think people wince their noses up at fish. If you go to France or Spain or Italy... They like the smell, they breathe it in. It’s a learned habit.”

Niall is confident that those cultural legacies are changing and Ireland will fall in love with the fruits of the sea again.

“We’ve found ourselves as a nation. We travel more, we eat away more; we’re more open to the idea. I think people are finally beginning to realise that we are actually an island nation. We have this bounty around us.”

At the same time there are challenges, like EU quota restrictions and the big one, sustainability. Niall reckons we need to be more responsive to what the sea provides and not get fixated on particular species. He says, “All fish is sustainable, the problem is we only eat one thing. So when they said don’t eat cod, everyone ate haddock. Then, don’t eat haddock, so everyone eats hake. In Ireland what we need to do is eat different fish. Try megrim, try Irish squid, try red mullet.”

He wants to improve quality in choice for the consumer.

“Historically a lot of our shellfish gets exported and we import about the same percentage. The appetite is there, we just need to start asking for it. It’s about asking your fishmonger for razor clams or abalone, or cockles or whelks.”

Niall is passionate about Irish food beyond his special interest in the sea. His enthusiasm is totally infectious, probably why Fáilte Ireland enrolled him as a Food Champion. He reckons Irish food needs a bit of a reboot, brand-wise and promotes the #thisisirishfood hashtag on social media. He describes his food as “not traditional Irish but what is traditional Irish? We’re a very young society in terms of independence. You rediscover yourself again and again and our food culture is part of that”.

This culture has perhaps been historically underdeveloped. Yet chefs, producers and everyday cooks are driving an appreciation of the simplicity of the food chain here in Ireland. Our small scale means that ingredients come as directly as possible from the land or sea. Niall says, “People are amazed in the rest of Europe, when we talk to other producers. Our provenance and how close we are to the source, it’s so simple. People are amazed by this but to us it’s second nature”.

Prepare to eat more oysters.klaw.ie