Various seafood cuts
on ice at Fearless Fish.
f you’ve never roasted a whole fish in the oven, it’s about time you try. There’s a new fish market
on the West Side of Providence, Fearless Fish Market, and it specializes in selling local species. Some are
familiar to most Rhode Islanders, like the wild striped bass, bluefin tuna and local bay scallops, while
Iothers are lesser known, such as the Maine sea urchin, John Dory, sushi-grade fluke and razor clams.
Owner Stu Meltzer also stocks other
underused or under-loved delicacies such
as Atlantic mackerel, scup, pollock, sea robin
and more. “I love talking about fish and
helping to educate people. That’s the idea
behind Fearless Fish: helping people increase
their confidence in buying fish, cooking fish
and trying new things.
“Our website even has a section that
includes fish cooking methods, recipes and
how-to videos for deboning whole fish and
shucking oysters,” Meltzer says. “Already
we’ve seen it working. Customers have loved
trying all sorts of new local species that they
were not aware of before along with new
formats, such as whole fish.”
Meltzer provides easy instructions for said
task, which is so simple it doesn’t require a
recipe. Stuff the cleaned and gutted fish with
lemon slices and fresh parsley, coat it in extra
virgin olive oil with salt and pepper and roast
it in the oven at 375 degrees for fifteen minutes
for every one-inch of thickness. It should be
cooked to 145 degrees. I tried it with two whole
scup and the results were delicious.
“The reason why that whole roast tastes so
good is because you get that fat and collagen
from the bones and it gets in the meat and it’s
harder to overcook,” Meltzer says.
The fishmonger says Fearless Fish was two
years in the making as he narrowed down
choices for the location between Boston and
Providence. He worked in other fish markets,
including New Deal Fish Market and the
Fishmonger, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
and Kyler’s Catch Seafood Market in
New Bedford. He also spent time working at
fish wholesaler and distributor Fortune Fish
Company in Chicago while attending the
Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern
University. He also spent time at Pangea
Shellfish, a Boston-based oyster distributor
that owns and operates an oyster farm in
Duxbury, Massachusetts. He then entered
the design world in Boston to learn the practice
of human-centered design, and it was
there he met his wife, Rose Manning, and
decided to return to seafood.
“Ultimately, I decided on retail because
I’ve found that quality and product knowledge
is often lacking at supermarket fish
counters. In addition, supermarkets and some
markets don’t often carry the interesting local
species that are available to us in Rhode Island,”
Meltzer says. “I thought there was opportunity
to do better.”
Though his wife is originally from Point
64 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l AUGUST 2020