Hotel chef cuts unsustainable seafood from menus

“Before the safe seafood craze came about we were ahead of the curve by eliminating Chilean sea bass and even Alaskan halibut from our menus.”
His Sheraton menus at Tapatini, Quinn's, Bay Tower Lounge and Harbor's Edge restaurant still show some solidarity with the responsible fishing movement. There's pole-caught albacore. And local yellowtail. Baja shrimp. Tilapia.

Black goes with Alaskan cod instead of mowing through weak Atlantic cod stocks. And his scallops, from Georges Bank off the coast of Massachusetts, aren't treated with chemicals (namely sodium tripolyphosphate).

Top Green Chef

Steve Black, executive chef of the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina (home of Harbor’s Edge restaurant) was named the overall winner of the Top Green Chef inaugural contest on Dec. 3.

It featured two chefs from other waterfront restaurants. Aron Schwartz (executive chef, Marina Kitchen at the San Diego Marriott Marquis and Marina) and Deborah Scott (executive chef of Island Prime/C-Level and, further afield, Indigo Grill and Vintana).

The event was presented by the Port of San Diego's Green Business Network at San Diego Gas & Electric's Energy Innovation Center.

Black seems to be one of those holistic fishermen, aware of the eco-system that supports his hobby and livelihood.

He gets his seafood recipes in Sport Fishing Magazine: Recently he sent over instructions for a fish abundant off the Southern California coast, sculpin. (The seared fish goes with a leek and bacon choucroute, French for sauerkraut, plus fingerling potatoes in lemon parsley butter. It's the dish he did in early ‘90s Strasbourg, France. )

Black will also drop references to "The End of the Line," a documentary narrated by Ted Danson about the dangers of overfishing.

So is Black the most legit green chef ever? Can he defend every fish scaled and served at the Sheraton?

“Currently we use farm raised salmon," he said, and headed off any criticism about the farmed fish's stress on the marine environment or Seafood Watch's "avoid" designation.