The Captain's Table, restaurant review: From the way it’s caught to the way it’s cooked, this fish is special
18 Kingsway, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire DN35 8QUD. Around £25 a head, before wine and service
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Your support makes all the difference.The Captain's Table is not the most original name for a fish restaurant but at least in this case it has the merit of accuracy. The owner John Hancock is the retired master of a Grimsby fishing vessel. He opened the restaurant five years ago in order to sell cod and haddock caught by his Norwegian partners in the Barents Sea.
"Lovely, long-line fish," said a friend in London, who urged me to head for Cleethorpes. Though I was unsure about the exact meaning of "long-line", his recommendation carried more weight than most since he happens to be a senior figure at New Billingsgate Market.
After driving through workaday Grimsby, you eventually reach the adjoining resort of Cleethorpes. Overlooking the limitless expanse of the Humber estuary, the Captain's Table proved to be a modern, somewhat anonymous establishment. Only a wall bearing a dozen pictures of fishing vessels suggested anything out of the ordinary. An interior photo of one explained "long-line": hundreds of large hooks dangled from great coils of line. Though fearsome to look at, the hooks are more selective and less damaging to both seabed and catch than trawling. The cod and haddock caught on the lines are frozen and shipped to the Captain's Table, which augments the catch with other species from sustainable UK fisheries.
Our doggy bag endowed us with the makings of the best fishcakes known to man
This scrupulous sourcing sets an excellent example for preserving fish stocks, but how does it taste? On a weekday lunchtime, a handful of customers were mainly tucking into fish and chips with mushy peas (£10.95). Though tempted by the large, white flakes of haddock harpooned on the fork of a neighbouring diner, my wife and I wished to voyage deeper into the Captain's haul. Here we encountered a problem. The restaurant website failed to mention that its à la carte menu, which includes dishes along the lines of brill fillet with beurre noissette, charred orange and caper mash, is only served in the evening.
There were, however, a couple of alluring possibilities on the all-day menu. One was "bouillabaisse". Elizabeth David declares in her masterpiece French Provincial Cooking, "It is useless attempting to make a bouillabaisse away from the shores of the Mediterranean… The rascasse is essential, always served with its head." Since the racasse or scorpion fish is a rarity in northern waters, we went for a more feasible option, the "Captain's Table seafood medley, a selection of seafood delights at £19.50 per person presented by chef Mike Hambling for two or more."
First, we sampled smoked haddock chowder, which proved to be the creamy New England version (New Yorkers traditionally prefer a tomato base). Well-speckled with parsley, it was heavy on haddock and light on potato. With a subtle smokiness, it would have made a quite decent light lunch by itself for £5.75. Our seafood medley, described by our waitress as "very popular", would not have made a light lunch. The prodigious array of fish on an oval platter resembled a 17th-century still life of seafood.
Going from sou' sou' east to nor' nor west, it comprised devilled whitebait, goujons of cod and haddock, redfish (a plump-flaked Norwegian speciality hooked, presumably, along with the haddock and cod), salmon and brill. If this wasn't enough to be going on with, some items arrive with accompaniments: a quartet of massive king prawns came with two big bits of chorizo, a plump fillet of pan-fried sea bass with a breadcrumb rouille, smoked haddock fishcakes with spicy pear chutney, a slab of smoked haddock with prawn risotto.
Standout items were the delicate fillets of plaice ("Really first class," purred my wife) and richly flavoured brill, but the line-caught fish was also outstanding. It was all cooked with great simplicity (grilled or pan-fried) and the utmost care. And from start to finish, we encountered not a single bone, surely the main reason why the British are wary of fish.
In a London restaurant I would not have been surprised to pay the same price for any one of the fillets. We managed about half, washed down by an astringent Sancerre. Our doggy bag endowed us with the makings of the best fishcakes known to man.
Strolling along the prom of this pleasant, unassuming spot to the newly refurbished pier, we radiated fishy contentment. Of course, the Captain's Table is perfect for Cleethorpes but is it too much to hope that restaurants selling simple dishes of environmentally exemplary fish will one day be commonplace?
Food ***
Ambience **
Service ***
18 Kingsway, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire DN35 8QUD. Around £25 a head, before wine and service
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