In Scotland, Serving Halibut for a Better Planet
The New York Times
Scottish cooks and diners are putting sustainable fish and shellfish on the plate in a tangible (and delicious) move to curb the effects of climate change.
GLASGOW — Inver restaurant is but a speck on the longest sea loch in Scotland. From its windows, a diner can see the remnants of a 15th-century castle and the rolling hills of the Highlands, but the breakout star is not the view. It’s a meaty halibut head that the chef Pam Brunton grills over wood and finishes with melted homemade ’nduja and a tangle of grilled green onions.
The small halibut she butchers have been raised in sea-fed pens on the Isle of Gigha, a nearby community-owned island whose farmed halibut have become the darling of people who care a lot about where their fish and shellfish come from.
Ms. Brunton, who could be Alice Waters’s Scottish niece, runs Inver with her partner, Rob Latimer. The tiny restaurant and inn is about 70 miles from Glasgow, where in November heads of state, including President Biden, thousands of diplomats and a flood of environmental activists like Greta Thunberg gathered for COP26, the United Nations global climate conference.