Trash Fish No More: The American Chefs Turning Overlooked Species into the Stars of the Menu

Walk into a mainstream American fish market and you'll find a familiar lineup: Atlantic salmon, shrimp, tilapia, cod, maybe some tuna. It's a greatest-hits playlist that hasn't changed much in decades. Meanwhile, just offshore — and often tangled in the same nets that bring in those crowd-pleasers — are dozens of species that get tossed back, composted, or sold at rock-bottom prices to whoever will take them.

They go by unflattering names. Trash fish. Rough fish. Bycatch. But a growing number of chefs working along America's coastlines have decided that nomenclature is the problem, not the fish.

The Species You've Never Ordered (But Should)

Let's put some names and faces to the conversation.

Porgy (also called scup) is a firm, sweet, white-fleshed fish that swims in abundance along the Mid-Atlantic coast. It's been a staple in Portuguese and Greek immigrant communities for generations, but mainstream American seafood culture largely passed it by. Part of the issue is bones — porgy has a lot of them — but anyone who's eaten a whole grilled porgy at a Portuguese restaurant in New Bedford, Massachusetts knows the flavor payoff is well worth the effort.

Sea robin is the fish that commercial trawlers have historically cursed. Spiky, prehistoric-looking, and covered in bony plates, it shows up in nets targeting flounder and fluke and gets thrown overboard by the ton. What most fishermen don't advertise is that the sea robin has a dense, sweet, mild flesh that holds up beautifully to high-heat cooking. French cooks have used it in bouillabaisse for centuries. American chefs are finally catching on.

Skate — the flat, wing-shaped relative of the ray — has a meat texture unlike almost anything else in the sea. It pulls apart in long, gelatinous fibers that melt on the tongue when cooked right, and it takes butter and capers like it was born for them. Classic French brasserie cooking features skate wing constantly. In the US, it's still a novelty.

Atlantic herring might be the most nutritionally impressive fish most Americans never eat fresh. Loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, relatively cheap, and available in enormous quantities in New England waters, herring is mostly processed into bait or pickled for export to Scandinavian markets. Fresh herring, however, grilled over charcoal or cured lightly with salt and dill, is extraordinary.

Lionfish, an invasive species wreaking havoc on reef ecosystems from Florida to the Carolinas, rounds out the list with an almost poetic argument for eating it: this is a fish that needs to be caught. It has no natural predators in US Atlantic waters and is destroying native populations with alarming speed. It also tastes mild, buttery, and delicious.

The Chefs Leading the Charge

In Providence, Rhode Island, chef Marcus Tello has been quietly building a menu around whatever the local day boats bring in that nobody else wants. "I've had fishermen call me almost apologetically, like, 'I've got a hundred pounds of sea robin, do you want it?' And I'm like, yes, obviously," he says. "These guys are embarrassed to even offer it. That's how deep the stigma runs."

Tello's approach is straightforward: treat the fish with the same respect and technique you'd apply to anything expensive, and let it speak. His sea robin preparation — pan-roasted with brown butter, capers, and preserved lemon — has become quietly legendary among Providence diners who initially balked at the name.

Down in the Florida Keys, chef Simone Avery has made lionfish the centerpiece of her sustainability pitch to diners. She serves it as a ceviche, as a taco filling, and occasionally as a whole roasted preparation. "When I explain to people that eating this fish is literally helping the reef, it changes the conversation," she says. "Suddenly they're not just eating dinner. They're participating in something."

In the Pacific Northwest, the focus shifts to species like Pacific sand dabs, surf smelt, and the deeply unfashionable but deeply delicious Pacific tomcod. Seattle chef Yuki Haramoto has been incorporating these into a Japanese-influenced coastal menu that treats small, oily, "low-status" fish the way izakaya cooking always has — as the most honest, satisfying food on the table.

Why This Matters Beyond the Menu

The culinary case for eating underutilized species is compelling. But the ecological argument is what gives this movement its urgency.

American seafood consumption is famously narrow. According to NOAA data, shrimp, salmon, tuna, tilapia, and Alaskan pollock account for the vast majority of what Americans eat from the sea. This concentrated demand puts enormous pressure on a handful of species while dozens of others go underutilized, sometimes to the point of population imbalance.

When commercial fishing operations target popular species, they inevitably pull up other fish in their nets. If those fish have no market value, they get discarded — often dead. Creating demand for bycatch species doesn't just introduce diners to new flavors; it fundamentally changes the economics of fishing in a way that reduces waste and incentivizes more selective, sustainable practices.

Organizations like the Gulf and South Atlantic Fisheries Foundation and various state Sea Grant programs have been pushing this message for years. But as any food-world observer knows, a chef with a compelling dish does more for consumer behavior than a decade of policy documents.

The Bone Problem (And How to Get Past It)

One honest reason these fish fell out of favor in the American market is practical: many of them are bony, small, or require more prep work than a salmon fillet. Americans, by and large, want their fish boneless, skinless, and ready to cook in under ten minutes.

But that preference is partly a product of what's been marketed to us. Whole fish cooking — common throughout the Mediterranean, Asia, and Latin America — handles the bone issue by making it part of the eating experience. You work around the skeleton, you get more flavor from the flesh near the bone, and you end up with a more connected, tactile relationship with what you're eating.

For the truly bone-averse, many of these species work beautifully when processed differently. Herring can be cured or smoked, which firms the flesh and makes bones easier to manage. Skate is naturally boneless in the edible portion — the wing meat pulls cleanly away. Porgy, when filleted by a skilled fishmonger, yields a perfectly workable piece of fish.

A Starting Point: Herring with Mustard and Dill

If you want to dip a toe in, fresh Atlantic herring is your most accessible entry point — and this quick preparation shows off what the fish can do.

• 4 fresh herring fillets, skin on
• 2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Juice of half a lemon
• Fresh dill, chopped
• Flaky sea salt

Score the skin lightly, mix the mustard and olive oil, and brush it over both sides of the fillets. Cook in a hot cast-iron skillet, skin side down, for about 3 minutes. Flip, cook another 90 seconds. Finish with lemon juice, a scatter of fresh dill, and flaky salt. It's bright, rich, and deeply satisfying — nothing like the pickled herring in a jar that probably shaped your expectations.

The Name Is the First Thing to Change

Chef Marcus Tello says the single biggest obstacle isn't flavor or bones or texture. It's language. "You cannot put 'trash fish' on a menu and expect people to order it," he laughs. "But 'day-boat sea robin with brown butter and capers'? That sells. Same fish. Different story."

That reframing — from unwanted byproduct to celebrated local ingredient — is exactly what this movement is about. The fish were always good. We just needed someone willing to tell their story.