City Cruises has been operating in York for as long as I can remember, recently substituting their familiar red with a new blue livery which looks very smart and remains eye-catching. I’ve lived in York 22 years now so have been on a few of their cruises in that time with visiting friends and at events, always enjoying the alternative perspective of the city that it gives you as well as the informative commentary. I also have fond memories of the Afternoon Tea cruise that we were treated to shortly after the birth of Baby Fork, her first boat trip which tapped into our irrational fear of dropping her overboard as a result of some complex and unlikely series of events.

This fish and chips cruise began early on a Saturday evening from Kings Staith, easily spotted from some distance thanks to that bright and crisp recent paint job. Boarding was quick and efficient, so after a bit of a safety briefing we were underway and heading up the river toward Clifton Ings. Before long fish and chips from Mr Chippy were presented with my adult portion and the child’s portion both being plenty big enough to satisfy our appetites. Also available were quality local beers from Yorkshire Heart that I enjoyed with my food. After heading as far as Clifton, we spun around and headed back south of the city centre past the Millennium Bridge. As this is a regular route when land bound, the five year old loved the novelty of passing under the bridge rather than over it as we made our way to Bishopthorpe.

The whole fish and chips cruise experience took an hour and a half and was an engaging way to see the city from a different perspective while also getting fed. It occupied my daughter well for the majority of the duration, a decent feat considering the attention span of a five year old, and kept me happy as I enjoyed the sights with food and a decent local beer. Keep an eye on their site for more dates throughout the summer.

(Disclaimer – PR visit)

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The Rockfish fresh seafood range varies week to week and is made up of a limited number of portions of whatever has been landed, with the remaining number of portions of each listed on the website as they sell. It should be noted that pricing is going to make a few of the cuts difficult to justify for some with the most expensive cuts topping £18 for a single portion, which makes it all the more important that the accompanying guidance hits the spot and lets you make the most of your investment. Irrespective of price though, it’s hard to argue with the freshness here as the fish is portioned immediately after landing before being shipped for next day delivery.

Your Rockfish fresh seafood delivery, which arrives in recyclable or returnable packaging, also comes with an engaging booklet that lays out what cooking techniques best suit each cut of fish, all presented simply and with handy tips for flavour pairings and which of the range’s flavoured butters to use. It’s also worth checking out the recently launched range of tinned fish, in particular the mussels are as unique as they are irresistible – I would definitely be sneaking those into any subsequent orders. Everything is neatly packaged and easy to store in the fridge ready for you to start meal planning. 

I opted to get stuck into some Gurnard first that I pan fried and finished with some of the Rockfish béarnaise butter to serve with asparagus and roasted baby potatoes. These fillets were just the right size for a light meal and were slightly oily, reminiscent of mackerel but much more subtle, to make a positive first impression of the Rockfish offering. Next up some smoked haddock that I oven roasted with some kedgeree butter for a really memorable breakfast when sandwiched between a slice of sourdough toast from a local baker and a fresh poached egg from next door’s chickens. It’s not hyperbolic to say that this was one of the best brunches ever eaten in this house, and the kedgeree butter has been depleted quickly in the aftermath too!

Scallops require a bit more thought in their presentation, with my efforts throwing into sharp relief the skills that chefs put on the plate, but regardless of the slightly amateurish plating, the end result hit its mark perfectly. These were some of the sweetest scallops I’ve yet had the pleasure of and set the scene for a real headliner in the form of a turbot t-bone. Cut from the centre part of the fish and with the bone remaining in situ, this was my first time eating this cut, and indeed cooking it though by now I was confident in the guidance that accompanied it – indispensable when tackling an £18 cut of fish for the first time! Simply oven roasted and well seasoned this was a memorable bit of food, the meat remaining succulent and flaking apart beautifully to work well with sauté spinach and a roasted then seared cauliflower steak. Last up were some hake fillets that I cooked en papillote (using parchment to create a tight parcel in which to roast them) to great effect and served with more of the well judged kedgeree butter.

The Rockfish fresh seafood service is a cohesive and well thought out way to experiment with seafood cookery at home, making sure that you get the best out of the produce you order and giving transferable instruction on how to cook seafood consistently. It would be perfect for the friend I mentioned earlier who was unsure of how to approach regular seafood cookery at home. It must be said that this is a premium product and is priced to reflect that, with most single portions around £7-£10 but there’s no doubting the quality of the seafood, the accompanying flavoured butters and sauces or the guidance surrounding it. It’s also a great way to try different cuts of fish as the range changes. I’ll be keeping an eye on what’s available and putting in a repeat order when something catches my eye.

(Disclaimer, PR product supplied at no cost)

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Drake’s Fisheries York has been resident in the centre of the city for more than a decade and is part of a family owned business that goes back more than 30 years. I’ve walked past many times over the years without ever making the detour inside but the recent refurbishment has certainly upped the kerb appeal and made it more attractive to passers by. Inside also feels modern and welcome, with the layout lending itself to privacy in which to enjoy your meal. The menu hits all the traditional beats you’d expect and makes sure to emphasise the use of quality local supplier Cross of York while branching out far enough to intrigue those of us with more adventurous tastes. To make sure we sampled as many of the dishes on offer as reasonably possible, we chose a sharing platter from the specials board which promised good variety, augmenting it with a child’s portion of fish and chips that added a fruit shoot & an ice lolly for only £6. A couple of glasses of Brew York beer completed the order nicely.

The sharing platter we ordered turned out to be a pretty significant challenge, with large portions of the menu represented across it. Truth be told, we could have coped just fine without the extra child portion with the amount of food. When our food arrived, we found beef dripping cooked chips, portions of different coleslaws and a few different sauces to be excellent scene-setters for some superbly executed fish dishes. Battered fish was an obvious starting point with crisp batter and flaking fish both present and correct while scampi were obviously whole bits of meat rather than the sadly reformed efforts often occupying freezer aisles. Calamari is another potential stumbling block, deftly handled here and left as soft as one would hope. Mackerel pâté and prawn cocktail finished off the selection with a flourish, the prawn cocktail enjoying retro presentation and the pâté with brown bread making the most of the strong fish.

It might have taken fatherhood to push me into more regular visits to the chip shop, but it’s a habit I’ve been starting to enjoy, more so thanks to Drake’s Fisheries York. There’s an impressive energy and confidence about this restaurant post-refurbishment that reflects ambition to be more than a simple chippy, which is also present in the menu. The platter that we enjoyed represented great value at just £30 and will certainly tempt me back regularly to sample more dishes, the addition of which I’ll be watching closely.

(Disclaimer – PR visit)

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York Cookery School has been teaching the good people of York the finer points of cookery since 2012, using a variety of well regarded tutors to provide characterful and informative courses. I’ve attended before to learn about fish cookery from the incomparable Steph Moon so had a good expectation of how the day would pan out. The tutor for the sushi course would be Dan Graham whose CV includes making the final of Masterchef: The Professionals and a stint at Malton’s well regarded Talbot Hotel as head chef. He gained his sushi skills at a high end restaurant in London from a Sushi Master and recently placed well in the Kikkoman Masters competition, plenty to suggest he knows his subject!

The four hour York Cookery School sushi course packed in a lot of detail, starting with a chat about the care and effort that goes into sushi rice. Dan had thoughtfully pre-rinsed our rice and weighed it out to speed things along and make sure we’d have ample time later on to assemble our own sushi. With our rice cooked and happily cooling ready for later manipulation, we settled in for a chat about the origins of sushi and it’s preparation. We were shown how to create our own seasoning for the sushi rice but I’m afraid I opted to take the lazy route and use the preprepared stuff while coming to terms with my naivety in not realising that sushi rice was typically seasoned with a mix of rice vinegar, sugar and salt.

Now it was time to get stuck into some fish prep, which Dan thankfully led from the front. We had tuna, salmon and halibut to go about after a detailed demo. We were told how to cut across to the grain of the fish and maximise the return on the piece by using trimmings to create the filling for California Roll and diced flesh for Gunkan Maki (“Battleship Sushi”). I was initially suspicious that the amount of fish allocated to me wouldn’t go far enough, but I would soon be proved thoroughly wrong. We also put together a sweet rolled omelette with which to assemble nigiri. The technique for layering and rolling the egg is something I’ll definitely replicate at home and it looked lovely when wrapped with a strand of seaweed to secure it to the rice.

With our fish now trimmed to the appropriate sizes and shapes, it was time to start building some finished bites. With damped hands to combat the best efforts of the sticky rice, we set about building nigiri, California rolls and battleship sushi, the more adventurous of us even knocking out inside-out California rolls under the expert tutelage. We also put together some a beautiful yuzu based marinade for our halibut and a sesame dip to go with some beef fillet. Dan had quickly roasted some beef to deliciously rare for us to reinforce the point that sushi is most certainly not just raw fish, as is commonly misconceived.

The amount of sushi I went home with rather took me by surprise and comfortably made a couple of meals for us. With a bit of effort to augment it, I could have hosted a few friends for dinner and taken an opportunity to show off too. The course comes in at £110 which feels like a very fair price for the four hours of tuition and the mound of food I returned home with. I also took great pleasure in being reminded how much I enjoy sushi and look forward to developing a sushi habit again in the near future.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for my attendance. Opinions are impartial

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