Lets call curtains on samey salmon dishes

It is indeed a tasty, tasty fish that has every right to be on a menu. My issue, however, is with what I perceive to be an inclination amongst some chefs that salmon is a “safe” option, a fall-back fish to pan-sear and slap on a plate with some green stuff to avoid thinking up a more interesting option.

Perhaps it’s because here at the PMA we’ve been thinking about the future of the pub trade and are so excited about the possibilities for pub food to develop and push boundaries that salmon just isn’t doing it for me at the moment.

Take the average food-led city pub. I can picture it now: dim lighting, craft beers, wallpaper that makes it look like you’re eating in a 50 square meter bookshelf.

Why then, when so much care has obviously gone into making this a desirable, trend-conscious urban eating environment, must the menu’s fish offering be so ostensibly uninspired?

Time and time again I’ve seen a host of delicious sounding meat options accompanied by “pan fried salmon with some boring potatoes and a bit of green stuff with interchangeable sauces and seasoning that definitely came from a squeezy bottle”.

The problem is that it’s just a bit boring. Foodie pubs came to prominence by offering restaurant quality food at affordable prices, making themselves an exception – an alternative to the traditional face of the eating out sector.

Samey salmon with veg is not exceptional. It’s a dish bereft of innovation, stuck in culinary inertia. Please chefs, think big with your fish: you don’t even have to drop the salmon from your menu. Just stop serving it with buttery new potatoes and bloody kale.

I’m not asking that chefs needlessly complicate their staple fish dish by sticking an avocado and some quinoa on it before giving it a cringe-worthy drizzle of balsamic glaze. But let’s liven things up, eh? Try serving your salmon with a creamy saffron sauce, that stuff is fantastic.

I would worry that saturation point was coming – reaching “peak salmon” if you will - if it wasn’t for the emerging breed of pub chef we see every day that is resolute not to stagnate, who treats his or her pub kitchen like a Ferrari rather than a Ford Fiesta.

If, as Tom Kerridge said at our Future Pub conference, the future of pubs is food-led, then pub chefs have a responsibility to keep doing things bigger and better. So curb the boring stuff and get cooking.