A Tour of The Sydney Fish Markets

There’s not much that will get me out of bed at 4.30am. A sick child (maybe), the cat meowing outside our bedroom door (to go outside via our bedroom window) and a visit to the Seafood Markets for a behind the scenes tour with Justin North – 2009 Chef of the Year and owner/ chef of Becasse and Etch.

We arrived there way too early, thanks to fortuitous green lights between Wollongong and Pyrmont. The tours of the Fish Market run all year around, but due to the Sydney International Food Festival, the tour guides were joined by top chefs to give their tips on cooking with seafood.

After we all had a coffee and just-baked pastry, we donned our fetching orange safety vests to go out onto the market floor. A tip from Sophie the marketing assistant to roll up our pants so they don’t get soaked in “fish juice” was appreciated, and perhaps explained her towering heels.

Our tour guide, Matthew, gave us a brief run-down of the history of the market, that now runs on a co-op type basis. We were taken to the "observation deck" where we could see the huge hall with large display screens and hundreds of crates of seafood.


The seafood market is a wholesalers market, selling mainly on behalf of the boats. From what I understand of the way it works is (and I did wander off to take some photos):
There’s a “clock” that whilst displaying the time (running backwards) also runs down a dollar amount. It also displays the seller, the type & grade of seafood and whether the buy is active or not. There’s bidders that bid per crate in this reverse auction. That’s as much detail as you’ll get from me, maybe I tuned out when Matthew said you only need $200 to register as a buyer, but a $10,000 bond is also required and payment is usually required on the day. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to stand and watch it. If I’d thought of it, we would have gone back after the tour to soak up some more atmosphere and understand the system better.

We then walked down through the buyers tiered seats to the floor of the markets, to check out the different seafood in the crates. Only Matthew and Justin could touch the fish, which was fine – and they did offer to let us smell it. Justin was very generous in his tips and tricks and I wish I’d brought notepad and paper.


Lots of advice on making stocks – herbs, spices, pernod & wine. And then add cream or extra liquid to use as a soup base. Cook crab shells in the oven before boiling down in stock to get maximum flavor. Advice on skinning eels for “tasty” jellied eel. A delicious sounding way of cooking kingfish steaks by sealing the skin side in a pan, take out of the pan and then put back up skin side up, adding extra butter to brown with garlic and spoon over the slashed skin to add the extra flavours of the butter & garlic.

Matthew (tour guide), Rick, Dan & Justin North (chef)

I was interested to see crates of carp, and asked our tour guide who buys it. It is mostly used in Asian and Eastern European cooking, and Justin looked bit dubious when asked if he had ever used it.

We went to the sashimi section, where the individual fish are auctioned in a regular type of auction. Each fish had a small section near the tail cut out so the fish could be graded. Here Justin mentioned that he buys fish straight from the boat, and will get a lower grade of tuna if he is going to cook it, as it won’t have to be of the same grade as sashimi.


We checked out the crates of fresh and cooked lobsters – I was tempted to pop one in my hand bag. The live lobsters were beautiful colours of blue and green. They looked very quiet in their crates, but when they are tipped out (to check if they are alive or not – dead ones don’t have to be paid for), one lobster grabbed the guy around the wrist and didn’t let go in a hurry.


We finished the tour with a look at some live tanks – containing lobsters and crabs and checked out the oyster shuckers. It was interesting to see each shucker’s personal preference with the best way to open the oysters. They looked beautiful and plump and I was almost disappointed that I don’t like them.


The Seafood Markets has a dozen or more retail sellers, so as it was Rick’s night to cook he decided to do flathead fillets in beer batter – a family camping favourite. We enjoyed a coffee at the Blackwattle Deli with some lovely pastry from the bakery next door. There was also a fruit & vegetable shop, a bottle shop and a kitchen goods shop. All of which (except the bottle shop) were open at 8.30am. There was also a spot outside where you could sit and eat overlooking the bay, but as the elderly Asian guy on our tour said “don’t come here on the weekend – too busy, too busy”.

It was a fantastic, fascinating morning. Matthew the tour guide and Justin the chef combined to create an interesting fun time. I think it would be worth going on the tour of the markets anytime (they run Mondays and Thursdays throughout the year), but I think spending time with a helpful, articulate and easy-going chef made it even more enjoyable.

For dinner that night, Rick made the beer batter – you add the flour (a combination of plain & cornflour) to the beer in a bowl (not the other way around) and whisk it in until it’s of a slighter thicker than cream consistency. We enjoyed our fillets with a salad and a baguette of delicious olive sourdough form the bakery at the Fish Markets. No photos of the cooked result – we were too hungry!