Features

SAN FRANCISCO — Restaurant owners around Northern California are taking Chilean sea bass off their menus as part of an effort to save the fish from overfishing and eventual extinction. 

“There are plenty of other fish in the sea,” said Allen Vitti, chef de cuisine at Fringale restaurant in San Francisco, where he has served the white-meat fish from time to time as a special dish. 

Despite regulations set by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living — the international governing body that regulates Chilean sea bass’s annual catch to 18,000 tons — nearly 80 percent of the Chilean sea bass sold on the world market is illegally obtained, according to a report Tuesday by the National Environmental Trust in Washington. 

“For every ton legally caught of Chilean sea bass there are 5 or 6 tons caught illegally,” said the group’s spokesman, Eric Rardin. 

And in the United States, the restaurant industry accounts for 70 percent of all Chilean sea bass sales, the group said. 

John A. Drocco, owner of PJ’s Oyster Bed in San Francisco stopped serving the fish five years ago because of concerns about the status of the species, and hasn’t received any complaints from customers about the decision. 

”Customers ask for it, but I can’t remember the last time someone did,” he said. 

The fish became popular about 10 years ago when marketers came up with a more attractive name for the species than Patagonian toothfish. In 2001, it was named Bon Appetit magazine’s “Dish of the Year.” 

The toothfish — a family of fish found only in the southern seas — is particularly vulnerable to overfishing because it takes them 10 years to reach sexual maturity. 

Biologist Beth Clark, director of the international regulatory agency’s Antarctica Project, said anglers now catch Chilean sea bass measuring two feet long and weighing 10 pounds. Twenty years ago, researchers caught fish measuring five feet long and weighing 100 pounds. 

Advocates say that at current fishing levels the Chilean sea bass will be commercially extinct in two years. A complete catching moratorium, they hope, may allow the stock to stabilize in 30 years. 

“If we don’t allow Chilean sea bass to grow back to healthy sizes and numbers, soon there won’t be any left to catch,” agreed Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. 

More than 60 Bay Area restaurants — including such well-known destinations as Chez Panisse in Berkeley and the French Laundry in Yountville — have signed on to the “Take a Pass on Chilean Sea Bass” campaign, launched Tuesday in San Francisco. 

It will force chefs to be more creative. According to Vitti, the Chilean sea bass can have a rich flavor as well as serve as a neutral component in a dish. 

“You can use it with bold flavor, you can use it as the predominant flavor — it is a pretty unique fish because holds up to lots of different techniques.”