It was serendipity of the highest order when Julia opened Love Fish on Southbourne high street because I was just about to start testing seafood recipes for a new cook book. Had she decided to stick to teaching, my options would have been dismal indeed. The supermarket fish counter, with its grim pickings of dubious provenance, would never have served my purpose, and the round trip to Poole fish market would have taken 90 minutes on a good day. When I stumbled in to Love Fish on the day it opened, muttering that I needed lobster and squid ink and cuttlefish and octopus and hake and green prawns and monkfish and fish heads ….. Julia calmly assured me that she could get me anything I needed. And she was true to her word. Thank god for Julia, is all I can say.
A former teacher with a passion for seafood, cooking and travel, Julia thought that this part of Bournemouth was badly in need of a wet fish shop, so she bravely decided to open one. And it seems to be going down a storm. She can’t display seafood directly in her window as it faces into the sun, so one of her biggest challenges is getting customers to actually come in (rather than peek around the door) to see what’s on offer. Once they do, it’s a gorgeous sight, especially when she’s just had a delivery.
She chooses local, sustainably-caught fish whenever possible, but will happily source from further afield if you need something in particular - which she did for me when I needed a live lobster for a Spanish soupy rice with lobster dish.
I really love Julia’s enthusiasm. When I popped in recently with Girl Child, Julia asked my daughter directly if she’d like a fresh scallop, creamy and plump in its shell, to take home to cook. I don’t know for sure, but there can’t be many fish provedors who would ask a 10-year-old that question. In any event, as cooking is a contagion in our house, Girl Child jumped at the offer. She consulted the internet as soon as she got home to learn the best method for searing scallops - and let me say, without a scintilla of exaggeration, that I’ve paid a lot of money in restaurants to eat scallops seared that well. We also enjoyed eating the coral on toast with a squeeze of lemon. You want to get your kids to eat more seafood? Send them to Julia …
The last time I visited Love Fish I asked Julia for something economical (having broken the bank with lobster) and she suggested a glittering black bream caught in the waters off Brixham in Devon. I gather it’s not a hugely popular fish - thus it’s reasonable price - but I can now recommend it highly. I simply scored the fish and rubbed salt, pepper and minced garlic into the skin. I stuffed it with lemon and herbs - parsley and basil as it happens - drizzled it with olive oil and baked it for 15 minutes in a hot oven. Cooked on the bone this way the flesh is wonderfully sweet and firm. I served it with a warm potato salad into which I stirred crispy pan-fried lardons (and the smokey oil) and a spoonful of capers. To the side was a little salsa of cucumber and tomato. I’m afraid we were all so ravenous that we ate the lot before we remembered to take a photo. But we did ask black bream to pose before it went into the oven.
Julia also sells delicious deli items and there’s a little café area at the back of the shop where you can sip coffee, eat cake and watch as she goes about her fishy business. Coffee and fish do sound like an odd juxtaposition, and I suppose it is. But when she finds the time, Julia plans to serve delicious fishy tidbits here, which will be a very good thing indeed. Meanwhile, Love Fish has given locals a whole new range of options when food shopping on the high street and my kids now ask if we can go to the fishmonger to get supper. Julia Tweets to let her loyal followers know what’s fresh in, and she has little recipe folders on hand if you need cooking inspiration. Local food shopping doesn’t get much better than this.
