Salish Sea halibut is a lean fish with mild, sweet tasting, pure white flesh, and a firm but tender texture. It needs no bacon wrap or sauce to give it flavor. This prized local resource is preferred by our region’s chefs. Chef Robert Fong collaborated with us during a cooking class to see which had better flavor and texture, our frozen Salish Sea Halibut portions or fresh Alaska portions. We cooked side-by-side, all things being equal, and all 26 students and both instructors preferred the Salish Sea halibut!

This halibut is harvested exclusively by tribal fishers in the Salish Sea. For years we’ve known that it is far and away the best halibut we have eaten, but because the tribal season starts the same day the Alaska and Coastal seasons start, there has been no effort to separate it out from the large volume of other halibut that hits the market at the same time. This is only a 3-week season, and then there is no more Salish Sea halibut for another year.