The Sustainable Street Food You Need to Get Your CLAWs Into

The Sustainable Street Food You Need to Get Your CLAWs Into

We paid Fabian and the team a visit during their recent residency at the Sun & 13 Cantons pub in Soho. Over dishes of crab claws in burnt-lime butter, kimchi-fried soft-shell crab, crab mac ‘n’ cheese and a perfectly charred crab, Fabian told us more about CLAW, upcoming pop-ups and why seafood is best kept British.

“Sociable
sustainable
seafood” is the promise of CLAW, the
only purveyors of crab you need to know about this summer. You’ll
find inventive seafood, seasonal vegetable dishes and, most
importantly, monumental crab sandwiches at one of their many
pop-ups and street-food stalls, as well as at their recently opened
takeaway site slap bang in the centre of the City.

Founder Fabian Clark grew up spending summers on the choppy
English coast, gorging on shellfish plucked fresh from the
surrounding waters. Back in London, he found
himself pining for a juicy crab sandwich, just like the ones he’d
eaten on the Isle of Wight. Baffled by the lack of fresh crab
available, he dived into research and was surprised to discover
that Britain exports around 80% of its top-quality fresh seafood to

Europe
.


“I realised that we don’t appreciate the abundance of seafood on
our doorstep”, he says. “To generalise, Britain has always had a
love affair with fish and chips, but beyond white fish I think the
appetite starts to die off. Along the coast people really do
cherish what’s on their doorstep and use the amazing produce. I
wanted to bring a bit of that inland.” Soon enough, Fabian had quit
his job in branding (where he had learnt a good deal about the food
industry) and launched CLAW with the aim of bringing fresh crab and
other fish dishes to
festivals
,
markets
and pop-ups around the country. The sweet, fleshy crabs
served at CLAW come straight off the boat from a fisherman in
Salcombe, Devon, and are probably the best you’ll ever get your
hands dirty over. As well as being one some of the most versatile
seafood around, crab is also among the most sustainable. Which
means going to town with lashings of melted butter without a morsel
of guilt.

We paid Fabian and the team a visit during their recent
residency at the Sun & 13 Cantons pub in Soho.
Over dishes of crab claws in burnt-lime butter, kimchi-fried
soft-shell crab, crab mac ‘n’ cheese and a perfectly charred crab,
Fabian told us more about CLAW, upcoming pop-ups and why seafood is
best kept British.



Do you think Britain has lost its appreciation for home-grown
seafood? Do you think that’s changing?

With the growth and popularity of food, people are becoming more
adventurous and willing to try something different. In the last
five years I’ve noticed a slow but steady increase in the
appreciation of
sustainable
and locally sourced food, whether it’s meat, fish
or vegetables. As a result, I believe undervalued seafood such as
welks, cockles and ling are slowly on the up.

What do you love about British crab?

It’s lobster’s less expensive cousin and packs a bigger flavour
punch. Crab is incredibly sustainable and we have such an abundance
of it across our shores. Compared to lobster and other shellfish it
definitely has a deeper taste profile.

Tell us a bit about where you get the crab for CLAW from. Why
did you choose Devon?

Suppliers all around the country will always say their region is
the best for something and there are numerous debates about where
the best crab comes from. Whether it be Devon,
Cornwall
, Grimsby or Swansea, the fishermen always say they
have the sweetest crab. I initially started buying crab from
wholesalers in London, which was all sourced from Devon but
extremely expensive. Once I started buying larger volumes I began
speaking to crab pickers all around the south coast because I knew
the quality would be high, but most importantly, I knew I’d be
cutting out the middle man. We use two suppliers, one in Devon near
Plymouth and the other on the Cornish coast near Tregoose. The
latter also supply some of the best quality fish we’ve ever seen;
we once received a whole coley fish that still had rigamortis!



What should really good crab taste like? Are there any specific
qualities you look for?

For the white crab meat it should be simultaneously chunky and
flaky in texture and not too wet. Fresh hand-picked white crab meat
should be sweet and delicate. Brown crab meat varies depending on
the season, as when it’s out of season (December to March) it
starts have a lot of roe, which is still delicious but thicker in
consistency. The brown crab meat is where all the flavour is, so it
should never be discarded.

How would you describe the food at CLAW?

We’re conscious that many people prefer meat, but we’re trying
to change that and demonstrate that seafood can be delicious,
accessible and fun. Preconceptions of seafood have connotations of
a whole grilled fish or a fruit de la mer but at CLAW the food is
much more casual. Some of our most popular dishes have been the
most basic, such as our crab mac ‘n’ cheese, squid and charred
avocado burger or our cracked crab claws in burnt lime butter.

What’s your favourite thing on the menu right now?

We recently did a four-night pop-up and the weather was really
cold so we decided to run a crab and raclette toastie – it was
absolutely delicious.

You’re planning to open a restaurant soon. What kind of place
do you want it to be?

We want it to embody our ethos of promoting sustainable seafood
in a casual environment. It will be a place you could linger for a
couple of hours or just grab something for the road.


What’s next for CLAW?

We’re opening a takeaway site in Finsbury Avenue Square in the
City in mid-April. It will serve all our street-food classics along
with some new seafood dishes, but also some meat and veg so there’s
something for everyone. We’re looking to open a permanent
restaurant later this year and are currently reviewing options.
Watch this space!

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