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Ramsay withdraws bluefin from menus
By Jonathan Prynn, Evening Standard 30.05.07
Off the menu: Gordon Ramsay restaurants to stop serving Bluefin tuna
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Gordon Ramsay will remove bluefin tuna from the menus at two of his London restaurants after criticism from conservationists.
He will no longer offer the endangered fish at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea and Claridge's from the end of the week.
The move comes after the World Wildlife Fund and the Marine Conservation Society condemned Ramsay for selling the fish which is now on the verge of commercial extinction due to over-fishing.
The fish appears on the menu at many of Britain's leading restaurants and there is massive demand from the export market to Japan, where it is used in sashimi.
The rate of fishing in the Atlantic and Mediterranean has rapidly accelerated in recent years.
Ramsay's restaurant in Royal Hospital Road offers the fish in its £50 lunch menu as a starter with roasted cep tartar, caviar, basil puree and spring onions. Its à la carte menu - at £85-a-head - has carpaccio of bluefin tuna and swordfish with brown butter.
Bernadette Clarke, senior fisheries policy officer at the Marine Conservation Society, hit out at the sale of the fish.
She said: "Someone like Gordon Ramsay who is in the public eye and who is looked up to by his chefs, other restaurateurs and the public, should be setting an example by not selling fish like bluefin. Perhaps he doesn't know how endangered it is.
"But I would have thought that when he makes a living from cooking, he should know in detail what food he is sourcing. The plight of bluefin tuna is well documented."
A spokeswoman for Ramsay's company told the Independent that the fish would be taken off the menu in the two restaurants at the end of the week.
"As of 1 June, it's coming off those two menus and being replaced by yellowfin tuna. They will not use bluefin tuna any more."
She added that Ramsay's restaurants regularly talked to suppliers to discover which fish were endangered and which were sustainable.
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