01/11/2026
• Looking for Solutions •
We were interviewed a while back about our sustainability thought process when it comes to food and work culture. One of the things we mentioned was that even if a product is technically sustainable and ethically sourced, it might not be sustainable for our restaurant. My example of this was Sea Urchin; while they aren’t an invasive species, their population can explode quickly and wreak havoc on kelp forests (which are extremely important for our ecosystem). However, because they’re only in pristine condition for a couple days out of the water, and the labour behind cleaning them is tedious it wasn’t really a sustainable item for us to have on our menu.
However, we love them, they’re delicious, and support small fishermen and communities. Our friends at in Bonavista, Newfoundland hand harvest them in frigid cold water. So there was always a goal of finding a way to “preserve” the fresh sea urchin flavour while being able to stretch the pristine flavour past a few days after catch.
After several tries we came up with this method of essentially making a very low temperature sea urchin custard. Using the fresh sea urchin, a light dashi, tamari, mirin, salt and eggs we cook it at 65C for an hour in jars. Just barely cooked, but now preserved they last much longer and still have their delicate sea urchin flavour of the ocean! While we can’t showcase the whole sea urchin presentation this way, we can still showcase the flavour of a great cold water Canadian shellfish. Currently we turn it into a sea urchin chawanmushi base with crispy sweet breads and chestnut mushrooms!
