It’s no cod for Stefan as he leads fish revolution

City Lives – Denise McNamara hears how fishmonger Stefan Griesbach is changing how we eat

For a born and raised Parisian, Stefan Griesbach always had an unusual passion. Since he was a young boy he was entranced by the sea.

His father was a public servant, his mother a secretary so the family had no connection to any aspect of the fishing industry. Yet every summer, he enjoyed diving, sailing and fishing and he would visit fish farms. For extra money he would work in fish shops. When he left school he decided to embark on t was a degree in fish farming outside of France’s capital city.

“Since I was 16, I was in and out of Paris. But I could never settle back. It’s a lovely city but only for holidays,” says Stefan.

“I’m Aquarius so I’m mad about water. I’ve worked with oysters in Britannia, seabass in the south of France, trout farming in the east of France. Anything aquatic I’ve always been close to.”

He arrived in in Ireland 1997 with the idea of learning English and getting experience in the fishing industry in the west of Ireland. He first came to Carraroe where he worked on a fish farm for two years. In Carraroe he met Caroline who lived in the city and he left Connemara to be closer to her. He worked for seven years in a succession of fish shops around town.

But he always had a nagging longing to be self-employed in order to have the freedom to do things his way. You get the feeling that Stefan is a man not to be trifled with if things are not done his way.

“I saw an opportunity to set up a fish stall at the [Saturday] Market. There had been no fish stall in Galway for a very long time. It was a tradition that had just disappeared. Quay Street was at one point full of fish shops, there used to be a fish market in the Spanish Arch. Winnie who works for us in the shop is 65 and she remembers her mother used to sell fish in the fish market.”

But setting up his stall was not a simple prospect. He spent two years trying to get a casual trader’s licence, but without success. Seamus Sheridan, owner of Sheridan’s Cheesemongers, then invited Stefan to set up a fish stall outside his shop, in the belief he owned its footprint.

The City Council however did not see it that way. He was given three months’ grace before he had to shut down. While it took another year to secure the licence for Gannet Fishmongers, that short stint outside Sheridan’s gave Stefan a feel of how brisk business could be.

“We changed the way fish is sold in Galway. People were only getting fillets, oysters, mussels, a few prawns. A lot of the seafood that is caught in Ireland is actually exported. There was a small market here for things like velvet and spider crabs, live shrimp, different variety of clams,” he explains.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.