April 24, 2024 — eat more than 1.5 billion pounds of shrimp a year, making it by far our most popular seafood. Most of the shrimp we buy at the fish market, grocery store, or at a restaurant comes from abroad, which carries with it a multitude of issues, from forced labor to the high carbon footprint caused by shrimp farming. When wild shrimp is US-harvested, it’s pulled in-season from the waters off Louisiana, Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas. Increasingly, though, a select number of New York restaurants are embracing local shrimp, highlighting fisheries in and around Montauk.
Long Island’s royal red shrimp is caught off Montauk at nearly 3,000 feet. “Their color is a gorgeous, gorgeous dark red; a color I’ve never seen in my life,” says lifelong fisherman, K.C. Boyle, formerly at Billion Oyster Project, now manager and an owner of the newly revived Dock to Dish, a Long Island-based seafood company owned by fishermen families and chefs that has recently revived following COVID.
Around New York, you can find local red shrimp – they’re delicate and sweet — on menus at Ilis from Mads Refslund in Greenpoint; Houseman in Tribeca; Emilio’s Ballato at the edge of Little Italy, and more. They’re relatively rare in that many restaurateurs and consumers didn’t know about them until recently, nor has there been much demand.