What Even Is Local Seafood?

The waters off Southern California are rich with marine life. As part of his effort to serve the freshest seafood possible, much of what [Chef Michael] Cimarusti offers at Providence is sourced from the Pacific. “There are so many amazing ingredients that are being harvested right here,” he says. But for most consumers, it’s not that easy. If you don’t want fish flown in from halfway around the world, if you want your seafood to be as local as your fruit and veg, you’re going to need a definition. What even is L.A. seafood? Los Angeles has always been a seafood town. Long before the arrival of the Spanish, the Tongva and Chumash people relied on the waters off modern Los Angeles for sustenance. This was an exceptionally rich landscape both on the terrestrial side of things and especially so in the ocean,” says Tom Ford, executive director of The Bay Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting the Santa Monica Bay...