Marston's licensees celebrate seafood success
A drive by Marston's Pub Company to encourage licensees to offer more seafood has resulted in a host of new dishes on pub menus.
Winners of a competition run in conjunction with the Seafood Council included Nicholas Leake, of the Folly Inn, Stableford near Bridgenorth, who created a dish of poached fillet of plaice, rolled with smoked salmon and baby spinach, sat on a Kenyan bean salad, with sautéed new potatoes.
"We always ensure that the seafood options on our menu are from sustainable source. I think it is vitally important to preserve our fish resources but still provide our customers with a choice of seafood dishes", said Nicholas.
Other winners were Richard Macey, from the Fountain Inn, Clent, who poached cod in Pedigree shandy with oyster mushroom spinach and Pedigree oyster sauce, and Mathew Shropshall of the Crown at Codsall Wood who glazed fennel, citrus fruit and caper sauce with a prawn crust.
Marston's Pub Company catering manager Ben Bartlett said: "We recommend that our pubs confine their menu of seafood to the most responsibly managed stocks ensuring the best seafood to choose in respect of sustainability of supply, environmental impact and avoidance of unnecessary or inefficient transportation.
"The competition attracted a lot of attention, with some great dishes coming through."
Marston's licensee Mark Petrou is also flying the flag for seafood, as the owner of UK Fish and Chip shop of the Year 2007. Mark has appeared on TV shows including 'Ready Steady Coo'k and runs two pubs, Bar 23 in March and The Anchor in Wimblington, as well as the Petrou Brothers fish and chip shop in Chatteris with his brother Peter.
Mark is due to appear on ITV 1's Tonight with Trevor McDonald, to draw attention to the need to source more sustainable species of fish like coley or pollock as substitutes for over-fished cod stocks.
