Billingsgate Seafood School
30 Billingsgate Market Trafalgar Way London E14 5ST
If there's a better place to learn about fish and seafood in London we've yet to hear about it – and it's situated on the first floor of the fish market, so your ingredients couldn't be fresher. Set up a charity in 1998, the school reaches out to schools and young people in an effort to get them to understand more about and hopefully enjoy the rich bounty of fish that arrives at Billingsgate every night. Despite being surrounded by water, fish and seafood consumption him the UK has declined massive in the past two generations and – they maintain here – that's partly because people are scared of fish if it's not with chips. If they knew what to do with it, they'd eat it more. Such is the Billingsgate School's mission, and a worthy one it is too. They do a wonderfully wide range of classes, but most of them have one thing in comoon – a visit to the fish market at 6am so late risers need not apply. What is great, though, is that you learn about how to assess the freshness and quality of fish with the market's inspectors before being treated to a kedgeree breakfast and lashings of tea and handed over to the school's chef to learn about gutting, filleting and preparation as well as some basic fish cookery. And just in case you know all this stuff already, they have a strong focus on profressional training too, with masterclasses in not only cooking but fishmongery too.
