‘They called it black gold': but should cuttlefish be on our menus?

It can be braised low and slow or grilled in a hot flash, covered in sauce and canned or stirred through a paella. Cuttlefish, a cephalopod closely related to squid, is the seafood menu offering du jour.
In March a cuttlefish risotto was added to the menu at Rick Stein's The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall. In Cardiff, at Heaneys, you can find a dish of pork belly, cuttlefish and borlotti beans. At Cycene in London's Shoreditch, a goat ragu with cuttlefish noodles, while at Silo in Stratford, cuttlefish is fermented to dress leeks, alliums and padron peppers. In Glasgow, Celentano's offers a linguine and cuttlefish ragu with black olives and tarragon.
About 4,000 tonnes of cuttlefish are landed in the UK every year on average. Largely caught in the English Channel, very little of it ends up on British plates, with most exported, as it is a delicacy in France and Spain.
'It's such an underrated ingredient, packed with flavour, versatile, and when treated right it can really shine on a plate,' says chef Tommy Heaney, who runs his eponymous restaurant in Cardiff and who has long used cuttlefish. Heaney describes it as 'sweet, tender and meaty, more so than squid. It's incredibly delicate but holds up beautifully in rich or brothy dishes.'
Dean Parker, chef at Celentano's, has cooked it for several years, and sources it seasonally – from February to July – from a 'trusted wholesaler who uses local dayboats'. His customers are increasingly curious and he says it is popular. Parker poaches the wings, tentacles and body for a ragu, the guts are cooked down in stock, and the ink sacks blended to enrich the stock.
At Wildflowers, a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant in Belgravia, it has been on the menu since autumn, usually served in fideua or paella, both Spanish dishes. It has been a hit. 'People don't know what it is,' says executive chef Aaron Potter. 'If they read squid or calamari, they would immediately order it. It does mute sales a bit. But when they eat it, they get a better dining experience eating braised cuttlefish than squid.' Regulars always order it again, Potter adds.
It is also being tinned, with British companies Rockfish and Sea Sisters releasing canned versions. Rockfish founder Mitch Tonks says it's in the top three products they sell. Sea Sisters offers two varieties: cuttlefish caponata and cuttlefish in a rich, jet-black, marsala sauce. It can be mixed into rice, served with pasta or simply on toast. Sea Sisters always sells out its limited production, despite the £14 price tag, says co-founder Charlotte Dawe.
Britons eat a narrow range of mostly imported seafood – cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns make up 80% of consumption in the UK. Nigel Haworth, chef patron at the Three Fishes in Lancashire, is running a 'Forgotten Fish' series of dinners this year, featuring megrim sole, brown shrimp, codling and cuttlefish. Haworth reckons Britons are increasingly 'excited by delving into what I class as forgotten fish'.
Rather than exporting cuttlefish, Haworth thinks we should keep more of it. He likes it barbecued and pays half what he would for the more celebrated squid. 'It's so much tastier than squid, so tender it's unbelievable.'
However, there are concerns over cuttlefish's sustainability. This week, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) released its annually updated Good Fish Guide. Cuttlefish saw no change from last year, with wild-caught pot, trap or creel options ranked amber ('OK – needs improvement') and trawled cuttlefish red ('avoid'). None were green. Tonks, who sources pot-caught where possible, said: 'It's been fished hard over the last decade, but it's fast growing and there are management plans being put in place.'
Alice Moore, the MCS's Good Fish Guide manager, says interest in cuttlefish has soared over the past five years. The concerns are it is often trawled and there has not been a robust stock assessment. 'It seems like it's declining and probably being over-fished. The other problem is management. There is no limit to how much people can catch – it's a free for all.'
Moore said potted cuttle was better, provided the eggs, which can stick to pots, are carefully returned to the sea. But the MCS would not recommend it as a sustainable option.
In Plymouth, Caroline Bennett, founder of Sole of Discretion, which champions sustainable seafood from small-scale fishers, previously sold cuttlefish landed by a 'pioneering fisher' in Eastbourne, who caught it sustainably and ensured eggs returned to the seabed. Bennett says about five years ago foreign buyers turned to UK cuttlefish as an alternative to squid, and almost overnight it became less sustainable – turning from amber to red in 2020. 'Big trawlers had taken out so much of the biomass of cuttlefish, in Brixham they called it black gold,' she says. 'If [chefs] can buy pot-caught, then fine, but they're few and far between.'
Rob Wing, owner of The Cornish Fishmonger, sells a small amount of the fish and has noticed rising interest. He believes there should be quotas and increased management for the fishing industry, but says this is an 'unwieldy process' that can take years. 'Clearly, the appetite for cuttlefish is relatively small, it's an emerging thing. If we all chose wider-ranging species from around our waters, not just salmon, prawns and cod, we would have a much easier time managing species.'
Dawe, of Sea Sisters, says it is wholesalers' duty to source responsibly. 'It's not for a chef to have a marine biology degree and look at MCS ratings every five minutes. They have so many things to worry about.'
At Sea Sisters, they avoid trawler-caught cuttlefish. 'We believe it's important to work with fishers who do things the right way,' she says. 'If we can create a better consciousness around eating our species domestically in the UK, then we've got a better future for coastal communities.'

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