Fontainebleau Vice President of Culinary Operations, Thomas Connell and his team have taken freshness to a new level with BleauFish, the hotel’s ocean to table seafood program. The program provides the freshest fish, lobster and crab claws to Fontainebleau’s famed award winning restaurants.
BleauFish provides most of the 500 pounds of seafood used daily, where the live catch is received and housed in a collection of 2,000 gallon salt water tanks called “Water World.” Designed and built by Fort Lauderdale’s Living Color Aquariums, Water World includes fish-friendly amenities including temperature controlled water — Florida spiny lobsters prefer the thermostat set to 70 degrees; Maine lobsters prefer to chill at 50 degrees. A blue-hued ocean mural on the walls of Water World, and the tanks’ lights, kept on timers to mimic the ocean’s patterns, relax the fish.
“We want them to feel at home,” says Connell. “The less stress a fish feels, the more delicious it’s going to taste. And that’s the whole reason we did this: to provide guests the freshest seafood experience possible. We’re literally going from ocean to table in a matter of hours.”
