The Italians Riccardo Radice Y Giulia Gabriele They met working at Clandestino, the restaurant with two Michelin stars Moreno Cedroni where they fell in love with fish cuisine.
“It was the first restaurant where I touched on these seafood charcuterie themes,” Radice explains to DAP. “We did a porcceta with tuna belly. I already fished with my grandparents, but that’s where my passion for fish began and Gulia was with me in the room. We cultivate that passion together.”
After going through several top restaurants -such as Nerua or Angle-, Radice and Gabriele ended up in Barcelona working in the two-star Enjoy. And, when the pandemic broke out, as it happened with so many young chefs, they found themselves with enough free time, after years of non-stop work, to give life to a personal project: Fishology, a restaurant where they give free reign to their passion for the fish.
The complex world of fish sausages
“We wanted to do something different that there is not in Barcelona,” says Radice. A unique project that, as the chef assures, is based on a self-taught drive: “I have studied books on sausages [cárnicos] at an industrial level, how they are prepared, what to do and what not to do and we have done many tests with the fish to see which one works best.
In Spain, Ángel León’s work with fish cured meats or the treatment of the less noble areas of these carried out by the Astrulian Josh Niland is well known. But, although they can reach similar conclusions, these young Italians insist that everything they serve in the restaurant has been the result of a conscientious experimental work. Of trial and error.
“We don’t copy anything. we developed ours little by little”, says Radice. “There are very few people who are doing it and they don’t share the recipes, each one of these characters creates his own things and develops on meat sausages”.
It is no coincidence that, throughout history, many more meat sausages have been made than fish, since its conservation is a priori simpler. “Conservation is more complex”Radice points out. “In fish it is more dangerous. We have to be more careful and review everything.”
In Fishology, the cook explains, mix all kinds of techniques traditional (and those that are not so) to reach innovative results: “When cold storage did not exist, that is when all these ways of preserving were born. In the Mediterranean brine was used, in the north it was smoked and in Japan sushi began by preserving the fish in rice. Based on these techniques, and with the machinery that we have now, we are playing around a bit. We still give it brine, then smoked and then spiced, and it matures another two weeks. We mix all these techniques.”
“The difficult thing is that the fish does not have as much fat that can be separated, it is more infiltrated,” Radice continues. “We use part of the tuna skin or swordfish belly to simulate this fat. For example, with the squid, we cut the fins, which give texture like pork fat. We melt the skins and use them to emulsify the sausage.
The result is huge fish cured boards, present in the two menus of the restaurant, in which all kinds of fish and techniques are mixed. Perhaps you can find a sangacho blood sausage -the black part of the tuna loin-, a leftover salmon or a swordfish mortadella. And although not everything is equally delicious, the experience is truly surprising.
Fish like you’ve never tasted before
All these sausages are made with the fat and fish wastebut the noblest part goes to the dishes that are served after these.
“On the one hand we are a restaurant restaurant, there is a mise en placebut on the other hand we are an industry, with preparations [los embutidos] that take a longer time”, explains the cook.
And although cured meats are the preparations with which Fishology is making a name for itself, it is in its dishes with fresh or matured fish where the passage of Radice and Cedroni through the great kitchens in which they have been trained is most noticeable.
We are dazzled by dishes like tuna belly matured for two weeks, which is cut into thin slices, with a very intense flavor, served on a dashi broth, mushrooms and wasabi leaves. Also the Ebro delta oyster with tiger milk Or, the one that is his big hit at the moment, the smoked scallop flowerwith caviar and glacial phycoid, served over a white fish broth with algae oil.
To finish the salty part, a dish made with the back of the tuna, which would be the secret in the pork, which is cooked as if it were a cheek. Its flavor is totally meaty. The dish is also topped with what they have baptized as “sea truffle”: the heart of tuna dried for three months, which is grated on the plate.
In the long menu you can find some of these dishes or others completely different, because it is configured almost daily with the fish that arrive at the market. “The menu changes a lot,” admits Radice. Gulia wants to kill me. Above all, we use the long menu to try new dishes and see how the customer reacts”.
The maxim is not to throw anything. “We try to take advantage of everything,” says Radice. “Each part give it a destiny”. She says it without saying the word “sustainability” throughout the interview. Good for Radice.
What to ask for: Fishology offers two menus, 54 and 89 euros. The price of the long menu is more than justified given how interesting the proposal is. To drink, very good Catalan wines from 20 euros and a homemade vermouth that Gabriele makes that you must try. There is also a letter.
practical data
Where: Diputación Street, 73. Barcelona
Half price: 70/100 euros.
Bookings: 936 339 858 and on their website.
Schedules: Closed Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights.