Only in cart-crazy Portland could you find a sustainable seafood shop set up in a small, mobile shack next to a farmstand vegetable market. Inside the tiny Flying Fish Company, proprietors Lyf Gildersleeve and his wife, Natalie, sell sustainable seafood (based on criteria set out by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program). Small signs hang over the coolers and freezers stating the day’s catch and prices—most of the seafood comes directly from fishermen in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California, including whole troll caught wild salmon, albacore, black cod, rockfish, sardines, oysters, bay shrimp, and crab. Everything is labeled with its origin in the interest of total transparency and Seafood Watch, and Fish Wise guides are offered to every customer.
Gildersleeve, a second-generation fishmonger who studied aquaculture in college, cuts up whole fish himself in the mobile kitchen adjacent to the shop and smokes and packs his own sturgeon, salmon, tuna, and nitrate-free bacon on the premises. If spanking-fresh fish isn’t your bag, there’s a few well-stocked freezers full of pastured elk, bison, lamb, pork, goat, and chicken, plus local eggs, pickles, and fresh local wasabi to dress up your catch. Thanks to the great demand for sustainable seafood in Portland, Gildersleeve has recently added a second location in the St. John’s neighborhood of North Portland.
