{"id":132817,"date":"2026-02-13T19:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/132817\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T19:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:40:07","slug":"nyc-fish-markets-romantic-valentines-day-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/132817\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC fish market’s \u2018romantic\u2019 Valentine\u2019s Day experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the place to get fresh on Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Fulton Fish Market is opening its doors to the public on the romantic holiday<\/a> for a rare, offbeat date night experience \u2013 complete with seafood towers, absinthe tastings and gargantuan hot tubs on its selling room floor.<\/p>\n

The bustling, 400,000-square-foot Bronx facility will be converted into a steamy getaway for love birds, where diners can listen to Latin jazz music as they enjoy tableside-shucked oysters and a \u201cguided absinthe ritual,\u201d fish market reps said.<\/p>\n

203-year-old Fulton Fish Market Cooperative will be opening its doors to the public for an offbeat Valentine\u2019s Day experience. Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thought is that we might attract the obscure couples of New York City,\u201d market CEO Nicole Ackerina told The Post of the fishy V-Day fiesta, which is part of a series of themed events the market is holding on various holidays as part of an effort to rebrand as a tourist destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to do something really funky and playful \u2026 to highlight the diversity in our programming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culinary historian Justin Fornal will also be serving up an oral history of aphrodisiacs alongside a main course of Hidden Fjord salmon and seafood paella during the festivities.<\/p>\n

The event, dubbed \u201cAbsinthe & Oysters: A Forbidden Valentine\u2019s,\u201d will serve as the market\u2019s inaugural \u201cFish Market Monologues\u201d history lecture at the site \u2014 all of which will be hosted by Fornal and are slated to usher in a new era of visitors to the wholesale market.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Yorkers have access to so much, that it\u2019s easy to get jaded and try to find an experience you haven\u2019t had,\u201d Fornal said, noting plans to connect the menu to its relevant maritime traditions, global trade routes and cultural rituals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guarantee whoever walks in the door is going to come out tasting something or experiencing something they haven\u2019t before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culinary historian Justin Fornal will also be serving up an oral history of aphrodisiacs alongside a main course of Hidden Fjord salmon and seafood paella during the festivities. Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cI guarantee whoever walks in the door is going to come out tasting something or experiencing something they haven\u2019t before,\u201d Fornal said. Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cI guarantee whoever walks in the door is going to come out tasting something or experiencing something they haven\u2019t before,\u201d Fornal said. Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

The quirky maritime affair is part of a renewed effort transform the market \u2013 which moved after 183 years from lower Manhattan\u2019s bustling South Street Seaport to the Bronx two decades ago \u2013 into a 21st century cultural hub and travel destination for adventurous foodies and Gotham history buffs, Ackerina said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince that relocation, we\u2019ve been operating in hiding,\u201d Ackerina said, and \u201cwe wanted to take a look at how we wanted to look at ourselves in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cFish Market Monologues allows us to share the stories and cultures that have always existed inside this market, but have rarely been seen by the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event series will continue through 2026 with live music, historical storytelling, \u201critualized\u201d tastings and more \u2013 with themes ranging from a bold Celtic jaunt to a Caribbean cuisine fete to a \u201c13 Thanksgivings\u201d feast.<\/p>\n

The quirky maritime-themed event is part of a renewed effort to rebrand the market as a 21st century cultural hub and travel destination. Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

The site also acquired permits to launch a massive daytime rave over Memorial Day Weekend headlined by electronic music DJ Solomun \u2014 and one of two shows are already sold-out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make the historic market a global stage \u2026 by expanding the tourism with dining, with tours, with large-scale events,\u201d Ackerina said, noting the transformation was inspired by Tokyo\u2019s renown global fish market tourism industry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe market in Japan is the largest in the world as a global destination for tourism,\u201d Ackerina said. \u201cThat\u2019s the end goal, to bring [that] here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people think they can\u2019t come here,\u201d Fornal chimed in. \u201cWe\u2019re finding a way to let New York that, yes, these doors are open.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people think they can\u2019t come here,\u201d Fornal said. \u201cWe\u2019re finding a way to let New York that, yes, these doors are open.\u201d Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

The legendary late-night maritime marketplace was considered among the most important wholesale fish markets of the 19th century, and remains the largest in the U.S. to date, reps said.<\/p>\n

Little has changed in the decades since, and the rare vestige of old New York still sees about two dozen fish-mongering vendors \u2014 some of which are fourth, fifth or sixth-generation sellers \u2014 slinging products daily on the noisy market floor in the wee hours of the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a historically gritty environment: I feel that the Bronx is the last real New York City borough, for its grit,\u201d Ackerina said: <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re here in the middle of the night, you can feel the sense of the generations that have passed through.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the place to get fresh on Valentine\u2019s Day. The Fulton Fish Market is opening its doors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11166,57,9,197,56,63,65,64,32785,129,58,47697],"class_list":["post-132817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-fish","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-seafood","tag-the-bronx","tag-us-news","tag-valentines-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}