Restaurateur out to win more fans for herring

PITY THE POOR herring.
Oh sure, it's revered in places like Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Holland, and a staple in Jewish delis everywhere.

But in Marin, it doesn't even have the cache of the oft-reviled anchovies, which dot pizzas and Caesar salads all around the county.

"It's considered a poor people's food, and it was," says German native Inka Petersen of Sausalito. "If you have tuna or salmon, why would you buy herring?"

Don't be surprised if that changes one day soon. There's a movement to get the small silver bony fish, which is low in toxins but high in protein, vitamins and omega-3s — and cheap — into more dishes at home and in restaurants.

"They're wonderful, they're plentiful and if we don't serve them, the meat goes to waste, says Kenny Belov, co-owner of Sausalito's Fish, which is one of the few restaurants in Marin that's been giving herring its due for the past nine years. "It's our duty as restaurant people to educate our customers by giving them something they're not used to seeing."

Herring season is in full swing, and the small fish have returned to San Francisco Bay en masse this year, making pelicans and sea lions happy. But the majority of what's caught is shipped to Japan, where its roe is considered a delicacy.

That's a travesty to people like Belov and Kirk Lombard, a San Francisco fisherman who tries to educate people about environmentally sustainable low-tide fishing through his company, Sea Forager, and is working to get a commercial permit to catch herring.

"Everybody's talking sustainability, locavorism, and then there's like very little demand for herring, our most plentiful resource," Lombard says. "It's just bizarre."

"Herring, California rock crab, monkeyface eel — there are all these amazing species that we have in the Bay Area that are completely underutilized, that are not overfished," says Belov, who distributes herring to Bay Area restaurants through his wholesale seafood company, TwoXSea. "Why not support those species and, most important, support those fishermen willing to go after them?"

Even chef Jamie Oliver is championing the small fish in England, where most of the herring caught is turned into fertilizer or fish feed.

"Herring is one of my favorite fish in the sea and it's dead cheap, so it's a real 'value' fish," he says. "We really need to be eating further down the food chain."

To help celebrate all things herring, the Cass Gidley Marina in Sausalito is throwing the first Sausalito Herring Festival on Feb. 9 with music, demonstrations and talks by Marin chefs and food experts, games and activities for kids, and, of course, herring dishes.

"My hometown has a herring industry also, and they have a three-day festival. It's a big deal," says Petersen, the festival organizer and a Cass Gidley Marina board member.

Among the restaurants participating are Fish, Angelino, Lighthouse Café, Osteria Divino and Davey Jones Deli, all in Sausalito, and Walzwerk in San Francisco, as well as Damon Little, chef at the Headlands Center for the Arts, and instructors from ITK, In the Kitchen culinary education center, and Yoshi's Sushi Catering.

Now's the time to give herring a try, either at the festival or at Fish, Angelino, which always features a pickled herring appetizer during herring season, or Lighthouse Café, which offers curry and pickled herring on its Danish menu.

Or pick up some fresh herring from Monterey Fish Market at 1582 Hopkins St. in Berkeley, (510-525-5600) and make it yourself with recipes provided by Fish's chef Doug Berstein, Mill Valley's Tyler Florence and others.