It’s 2 a.m. and workers are beginning to unload fresh fish from around the world at the Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx. Buyers negotiate prices, trucks prepare to head out for deliveries to hotels, grocery stores and restaurants across the region.
By sunrise, when much of New York City is just waking up, the fish is already on its way to becoming a lox bagel, oyster platter, salmon fillet or branzino entrée.
This week, those dishes will have a starring spot on many menus across the city as part of NYC Restaurant Week. More than 600 restaurants, 52 of them specializing in seafood, are participating in what has become a monthlong event that began July 20 and runs through Sunday.
Prix-fixe lunch and dinner are available for $30, $45 and $60 Monday through Friday and Sunday, with exact details determined by the restaurants.
Like all businesses, seafood vendors experience seasonal highs and lows and early summer can be one of the slower periods as schools let out and residents leave the city for vacation.
Antonio Oliveri said that for Seatide Wholesale, a Fulton Fish Market vendor that distributes mostly to restaurants, business picks up again toward the end of July thanks to NYC Restaurant Week.
“Restaurant week is huge because it’s a big factor for restaurants across all five boroughs, which we service,” he said.
Launched in 1992 by Tim Zagat and restaurateur Joe Baum, NYC Restaurant Week began as a lunch only promotion coinciding with the Democratic National Convention. The goal was to draw visitors, politicians and reporters to local restaurants.
For restaurants, the promotion helps to fill seats in the summer months, for diners it offers access to acclaimed restaurants at discounted prices, and for suppliers, like those at the Fulton Fish Market, it creates an increase in demand.
“It was very popular right away,” said Nancy Mammana, the chief marketing officer of New York City Tourism & Conventions. “We have some restaurants and many chefs that were in it in the beginning that are still involved in the program. The Union Square Cafe, the Russian Tea Room, they’ve been in it consistently since 1992.”
The program has grown to include restaurants in the boroughs beyond Manhattan, particularly in Brooklyn and the Bronx, a trend the organizers want to continue. That it’s been replicated in so many other cities is a testament to the idea, which can be scaled up or down based on the community, Mammana said.
The Fulton Fish Market was founded in 1822, and is the oldest and largest fish market in the United States and the second largest in the world. A cooperative that is home to 23 vendors, it was originally in Lower Manhattan, then moved to the Bronx in 2005.
The seafood that arrives at the market travels directly from fishing boats and ports to the vendors at 800 Food Center Drive, where up to 10 million pounds of seafood is sorted, cut, and sold each week. And this all happens “within 24 hours of the fish leaving the ocean,” said Nicole Ackerina, the cooperative’s CEO.
Arden Shore, editor-in-chief of the restaurant recommendation website The Infatuation, has lots of seafood favorites, from prawns with glass noodles to a whole fish cooked with garlic and butter.
“What I love about the New York City seafood scene is that because it’s New York, you have high-end seafood, you have New England seafood, you have Mexican seafood, you have really experimental seafood,” Shore said.