We had an early start recently (which means very early as I am up at 5:30am on a normal day!). Julian is usually only up at that time if he's catching a flight. It was all worth it though.
The reason we were up so early was to go on a tour of the Brixham Fish Market.
For those that don't know, Brixham is a quaint fishing village the other side of Paignton (you can catch a ferry from Torquay harbour to save driving). What a lot of people don't realise is that it has the highest value seafood catch in the country and is an important landing site for some of the world's best fish - hence sadly a lot of it is exported as it's in great demand at the best restaurants in the world. Over £25 million of seafood is landed and auctioned annually.
Many of our wonderful local restaurants, such as Number 7, our favourite fish restaurant in Torquay sell local fish caught and landed that same day in Brixham,
We were amazed at the range of fish on sale and there were over forty varieties. It was fascinating to see the process of arriving, weighing and sizing, auctioning, storage and sending out of the fish.
The cost is £15 which is reasonable enough on its own, but it also includes a delicious breakfast next door at Rockfish afterwards, one of the restaurants owned by celebrity chef Mitch Tonks.
Mitch is a great advocate of using our local fish and its quality. He was one of the pioneers of Seafood Coast, the initiative to spread the word about our fantastic fish and heritage by bringing in more tourists keen to experience this and eat our fish. Julian and I are very supportive of this programme and are ambassadors for the Seafood Coast too.
Brixham Market have doubled the number of tours available this year as it's so popular. You can find a full list on the English Riviera website here:
We thoroughly recommend the tour, and although it's an early start, it is worth it. Just think, later in the day you can come back to The 25 for an afternoon nap in our uber comfy beds.