What happens when revered chefs from different parts of the country combine talents? Executive Traveler sat down with Dave Pasternack of Esca, New York, and Frank Stitt, of Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham, Alabama, just before the two hit the kitchen.

Mario Batali says of Pasternack, “Nobody knows more about fish, fishing, and fish cooking.” Author Pat Conroy calls Frank Stitt the “greatest chef in America.” Here’s what the two had to say about food in general and fish in particular—and what, exactly, the chef owes the diner.

ET: Dave, you said in your cookbook that when you were a child, you used to eat raw fish with your dad on the boat.

Pasternack: Growing up fishing, we ate like that all the time. We’d catch it, filet it, and eat it on the spot. Three years ago, I was in Italy with a captain whose family has fished commercially on the Adriatic Sea for over 300 years. It was kind of sad—he was the last generation to make a living from it. Here we are in the middle of the Adriatic, and he says, “Hey, are you going to make lunch for us?” The only thing we had on the boat was a lemon, two cloves of garlic, and olive oil. So I made us some crudo, and the captain called his wife on the radi “I’m in my sixties, and I’m eating raw fish. It’s unbelievable!”

Stitt: What Dave did that was really groundbreaking was to promote crud getting the greatest, freshest fish and giving it a raw presentation with an Italian sensibility—lemon, olive oil, pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, or hot chilies—which I like much more than straight Japanese with soy and wasabi. That kind of raw seafood with those Italian flavors makes sense to me.

ET: What do we have to learn from those fishermen you grew up with 30 years ago?

Stitt: I’m afraid that the time we’re living in now, with all these beautiful fish, we are going to look back on 50 years from now and think: that was the golden age of fish. As a centralist, someone who loves to eat fresh, wild fish, I worry that the future is not going to be as bright.

Pasternack: My advocacy for conservation is that it’s a mistake for government regulators not to listen to the fishermen. These are the people who spend their lives on the water—who understand the ocean, the migratory patterns of fish and how they live.

Take flounder, because it’s a good example. In the spring on Long Island, the government opens the season when the fish are spawning and aren’t really that good to eat. When fish spawn, they can either be tough or they can be soft and mushy. A fish that would be two pounds weighs a pound and a half because he’s so thin from putting all his energy into reproducing.

But they made a dramatic maneuver last year in New England. They actually closed cod for the months of March, April, and May for the first time—closed their spawning grounds all the way up to northern Maine. That’s the kind of conservation that is going to save the fish and the fishermen. Sure, you may not be able to catch a bluefin tuna any time you go out in the Gulf. But the bluefin will still be around in 10 years, and fishermen will start catching 500- and 700-pound fish, like we used to years ago. It’s going to make all the difference. And if we can save the wetlands, the bays, that’ll be everything.

Stitt: Restaurants are going to play a big part in it. Chefs who put grouper on their menu twelve months a year think they’re supposed to get grouper every day. But one success story is Chilean sea bass. A group called Chefs’ Collaborative said, “Hey, this fish is about to be nonexistent, so we’re not going to put it on our menu,” even though customers loved it.

Pasternack: Nobody should eat that stuff anyway. It’s all frozen. You might as well cook my shoe! [laughs]

Stitt: There needs to be more integrity among the restaurants to listen to what the fishermen and scientists have to say. We need to work together towards that.

ET: What, then, is the chef’s responsibility to the diner?

Stitt: Our responsibility as chefs is to find great ingredients and to have enough love and care to take care of them and present them. It means having a relationship with a fishmonger or farmer. Instead of buying a refrigerated tomato from Mexico . . .

Pasternack: You wait. You wait on the tomato to be in season. People need to understand that fish is also seasonal. Great cooking is all about simplicity: respecting the ingredient.

ET: Clearly, there is real work cut out for the fishing industry. Can you give us some culinary good news?

Pasternack: People are wanting to eat healthier because the rest of the world is eating healthier. Look at what Alice Waters is doing with the school cafeteria program. That’s a big step. You’re going to see change in the way our kids eat at school. They’re going to be eating butternut squash instead of potato chips!

Stitt: And think of all the kids who are eating sushi and trying new foods—kids who wouldn’t have even known about them a generation ago. That’s fantastic. We’re exposed to so many more global cuisines these days.

Pasternack: We live in a much more multicultural environment. It’s the best thing that could happen to food. You know where the food is that excites me most now? America. We don’t even have to leave our borders. 

Photo Caption: 
Chefs Pasternack (left) and Stitt (right) unload a yellowfin tuna, caught in the Gulf of Mexico.