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The Fruitful Bough

I'm one of those sad people who find Radio 4's shipping forecasts strangely cosy (although I don't tune in especially for them).

Of course it's anything but cosy for the folk who spend a week at sea for a living, such as the skippers who supply The Fishes in North Hinksey.

While the gastropub is about as far from the coast as it gets, head chef Corin Earland wants his seafood to be fresh, top quality and sustainable. So the pub - which also offers Cornish sole and sardines - has joined a Scottish Skippers' Scheme, liaising with a couple of veteran seafarers who sail from Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, James West and Peter Bruce.

If you get to taste a plump langoustine at The Fishes, it's likely to have been hauled on to the decks of Capt James' Fruitful Bough, while haddock, cod, halibut, turbot or monkfish may have been ferried ashore by the Budding Rose.

Right now, the spring menu features the Scottish Skippers' Scheme haddock fillet with boulangere potatoes and spinach, for instance, at £13.50. The grub may not be cheap, but then these captains are spending nearly £1,000 a day on fuel, and fishing is gruelling work.

The boats keep in touch with the pub chefs by radio, so menus can be planned according to what sort of catch is in the holds, packed in Slush Puppy-style 'ice slurry'.

The skippers dispute the idea the North Sea has been fished almost dry, pointing out that a) they've been allowed an increase in the cod quota this year and b) they don't always use their full quotas anyway, as it is in their interest not to suck all life out of the sea.

Capt Bruce has been particularly vocal, taking issue with the doomsayers. In a week, the Budding Rose might catch 30 tonnes, mostly of haddock, and he says it's not small stuff either.

Not everyone is convinced - celebrity chef Raymond Blanc, of Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons, was critical when he turned up at The Fishes' launch night for the scheme, and didn't mince his words as he insisted he was more inclined to back Greenpeace about the situation. Time will tell, but one thing's for sure - the food tastes good.

3:50pm Thursday 20th March 2008

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