“So, where is the fish market in Newport?” The vacationer was from San Francisco and quizzing me on the local restaurant and food scene. He had arrived about a week earlier and was halfway through his stay. While taking in the Newport Flower Show at Rosecliff, his interest was piqued by my live radio broadcast. Describing himself as a “sometime amateur chef,” his first question was an excellent one: “How eclectic would you say the restaurant scene is in Newport?” Newport is enjoying a variety of dining options and experiences that rivals cities many times its size. My one-word answer was, “Extremely!” On any given night this summer, one can choose from Spanish tapas at Stoneacre Tapas just down Thames Street from bistro French – Bouchard – with authentic Italian at Sardella’s, a steakhouse at 22 Bowen’s, Mexican and modern American eateries in double figures, led by two of the newest restaurants to open in town – Stoneacre Bistro at the site of the former Yesterday’s and TSK at the Revolving Door, also on Thames. At the other end of Bellevue Avenue there is a two-star Michelin chef, and we have not so much as scratched the surface of the seafood options.
Those Michelin stars were from a restaurant in our visitor’s backyard in the Bay Area. Chef Simone Ferrara came back to Newport last July after five years in San Francisco.
Next came the leading fish question. “Isn’t there a central seafood market?” my new friend pressed on. My response, “Let me count the ways.” Keeping in mind that 100 million pounds of seafood arrived at a local port in Rhode Island in 2016 and more than 28 million quahogs were harvested from Narragansett Bay and local coastal waters, I began with lobster.
[caption id="attachment_215144" align="alignleft" width="268"]
PRIZE CATCH: The Newport Lobster Shack last month renamed its pavilion in honor of Ronnie Fatulli, a longtime lobsterman pictured above in 1979 with a 30-pound lobster.
/ COURTESY NEWPORT LOBSTER SHACK[/caption]
“We only sell what we catch!” said local author and harvester Laura Blackwell, who keeps the website for the Newport Lobster Shack. Lobsters, crab and conch are sold, packed and shipped from Fishing Pier 9, also known as State Pier 9 in Newport. The commercial pier exists due to the successful efforts of Ronnie Fatulli, lobsterman and lifelong friend to the Newport fishing industry. Fatulli was honored recently for his labor of love in preserving a piece of the Newport waterfront for the commercial fishing industry. The Lobster Shack pavilion is now known as the Ronnie Fatulli Pavilion.
Forty minutes away is the Port of Galilee at Point Judith, where swordfish, tuna and squid are landed. The most recent figures on the squid catch across the entire East Coast totaled more than 17 million pounds in 2017. According to one industry estimate, more than 10 million of those pounds were landed in Rhode Island.
Forty-five minutes east, at the Port of New Bedford, in 2017, commercial fishermen landed more than 25 million pounds of scallops. In fact, that is a fraction of the scallop total and an even smaller part of the total catch. Vessels from every major East Coast port unload in the Whaling City, including every important commercial species from cod and haddock to surf clam (quahog), winter flounder, lobster, monkfish, red and Jonah crab, silver hake and Atlantic herring. During the height of the season, 500,000 pounds of scallop meats alone cross New Bedford docks in a single day. The city is home to one of the few remaining fish auctions in the country.
The bottom line is the “big-city” fish markets are very likely to be bringing in their seafood from one of the ports in our area. On restaurant menus in San Francisco, as well as in dining destinations across the nation and around the world, can be found menu descriptions such as “Point Judith swordfish,” “Rhode Island calamari,” “New Bedford scallops” and many more. Sometimes it takes a visitor to show those who are lucky enough or made the right choice to live here, just how good we have it.
Bruce Newbury’s Dining Out radio talk show is heard Saturdays at 11 a.m. on 1540 AM WADK, through the TuneIn mobile app and via smart speaker. Email Bruce at Bruce@brucenewbury.com.
