Fried Fish Fixation

Exploring the Allure of Red Fish Blue Fish

It’s a chilly Victorian Monday in early March. 11a.m. Sunshine glares piercingly off the calm waters of the Inner Harbour. Sure, it’s ‘beautiful.’ But does that justify a queue of twenty people lined up—in the no-man’s land between breakfast and lunch? They’re here to beat the crowd. But in doing so, they become the crowd. This irony bears further investigation.

Simon Sobolewski, Red Fish Blue Fish founder and co-manager (with wife Libby), leans nonchalantly against the railing of the lightly-mossed Harbour Authority pier. “Every morning, we open to a queue. Every morning. You should see it in summer. People get here forty-five minutes early. And it doesn’t stop, all day.” What gives? The simplest explanation would be that they’re adding a highly-addictive, illicit substance into their crisp, delicate batter. Otherwise, this cult-like dedication is pretty inexplicable. And yet there’s no denying its reality. Simon will tell you it’s simply a fortunate outpouring of “local goodwill.” Which is no lie. But it’s also not the entire truth…

If you’ve never visited RFBF, it sits in the morning-shaded nook on the water-side of the conspicuously mauve Customs House building on Wharf St. You would be forgiven for missing it—it’s the restaurant equivalent of a tiny house: a stylishly up-cycled forest-green shipping container, further camouflaged by an assortment of sedums cloaking its ‘green-roof.’ Its only high-vis feature is a disproportionate, metallic HVAC blow-off fan that sends any trace of cooking aroma deep into the stratosphere.

Despite the fact that this particular stretch of pier has been home to a food outlet of some description since the 1930’s, when RFBF opened in 2007 it was so far off the proverbial track that they felt invisible. “Even if you’d somehow heard of us, no one could find the place. The area was abandoned. Forgotten. We were going to print t-shirts that said: ‘Where the f*&# is Red Fish Blue Fish?’ Even google maps had us somewhere up Broughton St.”

Humorous, but disastrous for business. Especially for a new restaurant owned by a fresh transplant from East Vancouver. “It was a new town. A new business. We had a new baby. And nobody knew us.” It was a daily dance on a razor’s edge just to keep the fryers bubbling.

And then Hope arrived. Its ghostly visage sailed in from the horizon, and moored right in front of their unobtrusive restaurant. The Tall Ships Festival in 2008 placed a main entrance at the old Wharfside Seafood Grille staircase, corralling forty thousand ticket-holders along the marina and pier…directly past RFBF. Still, the gigantic crowd of diners “thought we were a food cart. They’d wander back down a couple of months later and look surprised: ‘You’re still here?’”

The second stroke of hard-earned luck came from—of all places—Good Morning America. Stationed on Mt Seymour for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the GMA weatherman developed severe wanderlust towards the end of their Canadian stint and boarded a float plane for our quaint little town. He disembarked and noticed the long queue on the pier. What a great place to absorb some local flavour. The next day the entire crew arrived to shoot a bit about tea at the Empress, and fish and chips at Red Fish Blue Fish. That was the sum total of the American morning-show-watcher’s insight into Victoria.

“People come to Victoria expecting that all we eat is ‘British food.’ It’s like we’re more British than Britain.” And yet the menu at RFBF is so much more than that. Their chowder boasts exotic notes of coconut and oriental spice, mingling with crunchy corn and generous chunks of fish. Their ‘tacones’ are like Latin American/British fusion (it’s weird, but in all the right ways.) Simon describes it as “Pacific Coastal cuisine. It’s local, but also Asian, Central American. And we designed it all around the OceanWise initiative. We were the first 100% OceanWise restaurant in Victoria.” All their seafood comes through Oak Bay Seafood (nee, Cowichan Seafood), sometimes delivered three times a day. Simon waves a hand towards the diminutive, upscale fish shack. “Where could we put a huge freezer? We have to serve it fresh, we can’t do anything else.”

Environmental sensitivity has been a long-time priority for RFBF, well before it became a marketing requirement. Sickened by the glut of waste Simon and Libby witnessed at other restaurants, they invested in programs that would mitigate their own impact: reFUSE Resource Recovery delivers their organic waste to farmers to be turned into fertilizer, which grows the crops that RFBF buys as ingredients. Their fryer oil is delivered to a property in Cowichan who converts it into bio-diesel that powers their vehicles.

Strangely, the secluded location that almost broke RFBF has become one of its greatest assets. This is a historic, authentic piece of Victoria, away from souvenir shops and faux-British pubs. What drew Simon to this particular spot? “There’s just something about eating fresh fish outside…” he trails off, piercing a gaze across the shimmering ripples of ocean. He’s right—and maybe that’s simply enough to keep the ravenous crowds queueing at this calm, scenic, unique little alcove of Victoria.