Part of the appeal of legendary chef Anthony Bourdain was his no-nonsense honesty about the restaurant industry. In this vein, one of Bourdain's most famous pieces of advice was to avoid ordering fish at a restaurant on Mondays. Basing his words on the delivery schedules of New York City fishmongers at the time, Bourdain's advice became so well-traveled that he once joked to that "don't eat fish on Monday is going to be on my headstone.
" In a 1999 issue of , the soon-to-be-famous chef quipped that "the Monday-night tuna you want has been kicking around in the kitchen since Friday morning, under God knows what conditions." The same warning appeared in Bourdain's smash hit memoir "Kitchen Confidential" one year later. Perhaps this was apt advice in 20th century New York, but according to Jason Pfeifer, culinary director for " ", this rule of thumb is no longer particularly handy.
Each day of the week, fish will be as fresh as possible Pfeifer, who is also Executive Director of Food & Beverage at Mattos Hospitality, a restaurant group that includes the Michelin-starred Estela, contends that in modern times, it is okay to order fish on Mondays, or any day. "We source for each day of the week," he told The Takeout in an interview. "We try our best to maintain daily PARs as to keep things as fresh as possible.
Occasionally this may change if we are looking to age or cure a fish." "PAR" is a restaurant industry acronym standing for "periodic automatic replacement," which means the a.