Truly local

Robert Simonetti considers himself a lucky man and I must say I have to agree with him. Not only does he have the unique opportunity of being able to hand-pick each morning every single piece of fish he serves in his restaurant and takeaway, but everything he does sell is caught by local fishermen out of Brixham harbour in Devon.
Owning Roberts Fisheries, a wholesale and retail fish business in Brixham’s multi-million pound fish quay, Robert decided to branch out into fish and chips buying a closed down gift shop in September last year. After a complete overhaul it’s now - in Robert’s own words ‘a swanky fish and chip shop’.
Wearing both his wholesaler and frier hats, Robert is up at 5am every morning visiting the fish market, which is just a few hundred meters from the shop. “It’s the premier fish market in England and the quality of fish we get here is the best in the world,” exudes Robert. “I’m in a lucky situation as I can come down to the quayside, pick out what I want and have what I want. It’s a lot easier for me than perhaps anyone else in the trade and it’s fantastic to offer such a selection of species.”
Customers certainly can’t grumble about the variety of fish available here, there’s something for everybody from your everyday fish and chip shop staples through to the downright unusual and obscure. There’s skate, plaice, gurnard, monk, sea bass, john dory, bream, wild salmon, oysters, crab, scallops, Dover sole, sole, turbot, cuttlefish, squid - the list is endless. And it’s all fresh and it’s all from the plentiful waters of Brixham bay. The only produce Robert buys in frozen are prawns, king prawns and scampi.
As well as celebrating the local produce available in Brixham, the menu gives customers the opportunity to try different species. “Take squid for example,” says Robert. “Everyone is really into it at the moment, but fresh local squid is quite expensive so we are trying to push them onto cuttle fish. It’s a really unusual fish but it tastes very similar to squid, in fact I think it tastes better than squid. People are trying it and they are changing their eating habits.”
It’s a similar story in the takeaway too where the Simply Fish team are pushing the lesser known species pouting. Cheaper than cod and haddock and much more readily available than its white fish counter-parts, Robert reckons he now sells twice as much pouting as he does cod and haddock. “I would say I eat more fish than most, I eat it every day, and if I’m served up all three next to each other haddock would be the only one I could pick out on flavour. In my opinion pouting is a great alternative and I would recommend more friers give it a go.”
All three species are clearly labelled on the menu board, but if a customer comes in and asks for fish and chips, they are automatically given pouting. Those customers that do order cod or haddock are still pursued by the waiting staff who point out the local pouting and ask if they would like to try it.
It’s a tactic that seems to be working with two out of three customers agreeing to give pouting a chance. “What we really want to do here is show our customers that there’s more to fish than just cod and haddock and to share the load so to speak. Since we’ve been doing this customers are actually coming back and asking for pouting.”
Just as impressive as its sustainable credentials is the bright, vibrant and modern setting that is Simply Fish. “We wanted to raise everyone’s game in Brixham,” explains Robert. “There’s actually a fish and chip shop next door to ours and about four more in half a mile radius. They are really good, but we wanted to be better than that. I’m pretty sure they sell frozen and there’s nothing wrong with that, most fish and chip shops do, but we don’t and I wanted that reflected in how the shop looks.”
Not only has the shop fitter Centreplan (www.centreplan.com) come up trumps with the overall look, but they’ve also done extremely well to shoe-horn everything in to what is quite a compact space – 10m x 4m Robert estimates. There’s the restaurant with 20 covers, a toilet, a bar, a three pan Kiremko (www.kfeltd.co.uk) range, as well as an oven, hob and a display counter which showcases some of the local fish available.
With space at a premium, Robert uses FFF (www.fyldefreshandfabulous.com) fresh chips and preps all the shop’s fish at Robert’s Fisheries just across the road. “It’s a big job and it’s one of the things we didn’t really think about when we actually took the shop on. You think it’s all about the service side, but the prepping is a massive operation in itself and I basically have one member of staff who fillets all week.”
So how has Robert found moving from fishmonger to fish frier? Well, Robert has had past experience of working in fish and chip shops but even still he admits it’s a different game today. “Everything has changed from the way people fry to the equipment we now use to fry on, but the one thing I didn’t think about was the hours, especially as I’m running the two businesses. The shop may be open from 12 noon to 10pm but you have to be in prepping two hours before and then cleaning down afterwards. It’s a lot of hours and I didn’t really allow for that.”
Robert estimates in the first three to four weeks he was working 18 hours a day in the restaurant every day, but the hard work is certainly paying off now with a restaurant that’s been packed out from the day it opened and a takeaway with a constant queue outside. With the summer period in full swing too, it’s looking like a successful first year for Simply Fish.