The first seafood CSA in NYC, Dock to Dish, will attempt to return restaurants to the older way of doing things, where they worked around what was in supply over what was in demand. We are more familiar with CSA’s where consumers sign up for a memberships to be provided with seasonal, local, fresh produce from local farmers. Dock to Dish operates in the same manner just with seafood rather than produce. Restaurateur Sean Barrett has come together with fishermen to apply the same CSA economic model to seafood and established Community Supported Fisheries (CSF).

Dock to Dish will help to foster the relationship between growers and eaters by shortening the distribution chain. Dock to Dish was founded in Montauk, Long Island to provide members with a weekly portion of high quality seafood caught sustainably within the last 24 hours. Dock to Dish then took off in New York City where it became the first Restaurant Supported Fishery with chefs such as Bill Telepan, Dan Barber and April Bloomfield subscribing amongst others. They receive an abundance of whatever is caught fresh such as bigeye tuna, fluke, black sea bass, swordfish, squid and many others. According to Edible, “Chefs used to rely on fishermen who came to their kitchen doors offering what was local, plentiful and in season. Then they wrote the menu. It put excitement into preparations: a little surprise to get the creative juices flowing.”

To read more about the CSF and watch a short video on how it operates, click here