After ten years running her own restaurant in Bristol, Portuguese-born Tucha joined forces with ‘Herring Hag’ to bring to the public homemade food at affordable prices. All produce they use in their tasty Portuguese recipes come from local supplies, organic where possible, and is delivered straight to your door.

In 2005, at the International Festival of the Sea in Portsmouth’s Historic Naval Dockyard, Tucha and Herring Hag joined forces with Kipperland where Tucha’s Kitchen was launched. Sponsored by the festival, the Kitchen cooked and handed out free tastings of various fish dishes they were cooking over the four day event. The reception was overwhelming, with queues of people thronging Fishermen’s Quay. This double act made cooking seem fun as well as bringing to notice an awareness of the sustainability of the fish they used, proving that if people are aware of what they eat, it is possible to create wonderful yet simple dishes. Only sustainable supplies were used, including salt cod from Iceland, prawns, sea bass, black bream, sole, tuna and swordfish.

One of the favourite dishes was kipper pate on garlic croutons, the smoked herrings coming direct from Kipperman’s adjacent smokehouse. Another was the Caldeirada – or fish stew – a traditional dish from central Portugal.. Their salt cod fishcakes were so popular that they might eventually put Captain Birdseye out of business!

It is educating our children that the two chefs find most important and they seen passionate about introducing fresh fish to the kids, the future protectors of our seas. “They are our future,” says Tucha, “and the only way to make substantial changes to our eating habits is to let them actually taste what is available. They wont change through mere words.”
“Yes,” agrees Herring Hag, “but it is just as important for them to learn about where the fish come from and a little about its history. They should learn about how it is caught, what methods are endangering the balance of the seas. On top of that they should discover the healthy aspect of fish, what vitamins, minerals and oils they can get from fish. Some people say they don’t like kippers but the same folk love our kipper pate. We want to broaden people’s horizons on fish.”

This really is an entertaining double act in the Kitchen. When they cook Tucha is fiery, fast, creative and full of culinary skills while Herring Hag is more organised, relaxed, slow and methodical. Together they are professional, adaptable, educational and fun-loving, producing food that is sustainable, affordable and healthy. As they put it in unison: “Quality fish means a healthy diet and healthy seas while quantity fish means ill-health and empty seas. We want to see flourishing coastal fishing communities that are the basis of the fishing industry in this country.”

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