Nobu to celebs: Please don't eat that tuna on our menu
Filed under: Extracurriculars, Food, Travel
For years, Greenpeace has been after celebrity-studded sushi joint Nobu to stop serving the endangered bluefin tuna at its restaurants. Last year, the environmental activist group had tuna samples (not labeled as bluefin tuna) from Nobu's three London restaurants DNA tested, and discovered they were, indeed, flesh of the endangered fish. The group demanded that Nobu stop selling bluefin tuna, and wrote that the discovery "means that the celebrity diners at Nobu, the likes of Madonna, David Beckham and Lily Allen, are unwittingly pushing a species toward extinction."Evidently, not all celebs mind pushing a species toward extinction, not if they can get some yummy sushi in the bargain. Nobu has altered its London menus to read "Bluefin tuna is an environmentally threatened species -- please ask your server for an alternative." This bizarre behavior has one restauranteur suggesting the tuna (at £32 a serving) is among Nobu's most profitable dishes, and the chain isn't about to give up profit for the good of a species in these tough economic times.
Naturally, this behavior has the rest of the planet (the part with a rice grain of morals) blinking its eyes in incomprehension. As the Guardian's Jay Rayner writes wickedly, "Those with a conscience? Let them eat hake. The rich and conscience-free, meanwhile, can gorge on the soon to be extinct until it's all gone. And would sir like a side order of baby panda with that?" He goes on to write that the bizarre move is so unquestioningly unethical, it's pointless to ask "what do you think?" Obviously, you think it's awful.
Environmentalists are comparing the restaurant's choice to continue serving tuna to putting panda or tiger on their menus; but because an international fishing commission has allowed "ruinous quotas," it is legal, though ill-advised, to serve the fish.
All that is left is for the celebrities who co-own and frequent Nobu to step up and say "no more," but to date, none have dared cross the Japanese chefs whose delicacies they covet.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-28-2009 @ 7:32PM
niki said...
That disclaimer is lame. Wow.
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5-28-2009 @ 10:54PM
dan said...
What I want to know is, how does it taste?
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5-28-2009 @ 11:24PM
dawnehelene59 said...
To be blunt....like "bait."
5-29-2009 @ 1:51AM
Halina said...
Since Japanese chefs have the balls to insist upon serving endangered Bluefin tuna on the menu of their restaurants for the upper crusted...Someone should invite those Japanese Chiefs to their local movie theatre to view a screening of "Solent Green."...That's so their stuck up, conceited, holier than thou asses will get a clue...A clue that we are all part of the food chain and once any form of food that we know of is gone, it's gone...And then on to the next form of food we have...Pass on the human please, especially if its "Japanese."
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5-30-2009 @ 8:06PM
Sevilla said...
Soylent Green...a great comparison Halina
5-29-2009 @ 9:36AM
Mortgage Calculator Man said...
While I understand the uproar over them serving bluefin tuna, do you really think a Japanese chef would change their mind after watching a movie? These guys spend all day slicing and dicing fish from every angle.
The little disclaimer is actually quite funny. Basically, "If you're a law abiding citizen then order something else... Otherwise, enjoy your Bluefin as we look the other way!" Hilarious.
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5-30-2009 @ 5:29PM
Ann said...
Law abiding? It doesn't appear to be against the law to serve or eat the fish, therefore there is no reason for "law abiding" citizens to order anything else. Did you perhaps mean to say "environmentally aware" instead?
5-30-2009 @ 4:37PM
Wolfster said...
Put the Japanese chefs on the menu. When those thoughtless, heartless beasts are extinct, no more problems for blufins.
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5-30-2009 @ 4:30PM
lk said...
The people who can afford to eat at places like Nobu have a sense of entitlement for themselves and would order while discussing the tragedy that the species is endangered. Self important, self indulging egomaniacs.
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5-30-2009 @ 4:42PM
sleepy204 said...
There are starving kids in our own country. Who gives a S..T
about the fish. Get your priorties straight , you do-gooders
for nothing.
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5-30-2009 @ 4:54PM
jdmack said...
Unless there's some ironclad contract floating around that says the chefs can do or serve whatever they please, the managing partners who say that their hands are tied are feeding all of us a line....
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6-01-2009 @ 9:45AM
strawnman said...
If you do go out to eat in a Restaurant, Don't forget to ask yourself if any of the meals you eat contain Fructose corn syrup and Please read food labels carefully, Mercury contamination has been found in Fructose Corn Syrup,...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQQljmDfySQ
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5-30-2009 @ 6:39PM
vic said...
Who cares??? Its a frickin fish!! Solve the tax spending crisis and maybe you'll have something
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5-30-2009 @ 8:07PM
cowboy541 said...
Did most of the peaple here not see or understand the part of a legal quota?
you have a choice let it go to waist or sell it for someone to eat.
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5-31-2009 @ 9:31PM
Angel said...
I'm scratching my head at most of the retards that have posted so far. Seriously. You're totally missing the damn point.
WHY exactly can these restaurants continue to prepare and sell an endangered species? Who is turning a blind eye?? Why haven't any official offices done anything about this??
So the fuck what if the almighty CHEF wants to cook it. There's such a thing as laws.
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5-30-2009 @ 11:28PM
Terry said...
Robert DeNero is still a partner isn't he, but I guess when your making money from a restaurant, "who cares how you get it"
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5-30-2009 @ 11:59PM
John said...
Hem-eez for Hemorrhoids People. Why Suffer?!
Hem-eez.com
I Took 2 Tablets with meals and Wham, not even Emeral could make that happen, they started shrinking in days!
If it is endangered.. we should leave it alone! It's common sense... but then again according to everything else, News etc we are all about to be extinct.
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5-31-2009 @ 1:19AM
Jenn said...
OMG its just a stupid fish!
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5-31-2009 @ 2:46AM
bobby said...
I've never been interested in sushi but i want this one and this one only until it's gone,..is that wrong?
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5-31-2009 @ 5:00AM
Big G said...
I don't understand all you people! You can't see the clear picture? President Clinton was smoking an illegal cuban cigar while getting serviced by Monica Lewinski. Micky Mantle still got donated an organ just several months before dying of cancer! I can go on and on! Do you get the picture? You get special benefits being rich! But a fish is dying now all the liberals are worried about it! Just like gasoline. It will get so expensive one day that the middle class and poore people will not be able to afford luxury gas running cars. We will have to rely on public transport or expensive battery operated junk while the rich live and enjoy thier lives! Wake up people!
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