Seafood

The waters that surround Jersey produce an abundance of top quality shellfish, including: chancre crab, spider crab, lobster, fresh scallops and oysters. Jersey also offers simpler dishes such as Jersey plaice, seabass and mackerel. If you're lucky you may come across our local delicacy, the ormer.

Ormers

The ormer, from the French ‘oreille de mer’ (ear of the sea), is a rare marine snail and the Channel Islands mark the northern limit of its habitat. In an effort to preserve stocks, strict regulations have been applied to the gathering of ormers.

Due to the biology and the social importance of this species the fishery is carefully managed.

 • SCUBA Diving for ormers is not allowed.

• There is a Minimum Landing Size of 90mm.

• Fishing for ormers may only take place between from the 1st October until the 30th April.

• During the ormering season, fishing may only take place on the first day of each new or full moon, and the three following days.

• It is also an offence to either possess fresh ormers or export them at any time other than between the 1st October and the 30th April and then on the first day of a new or full moon and the five days following.

These rules are strictly policed and heavy fines are levied on offenders. At very low tide - the island has the second highest tidal range in the world, making the island ‘grow’ by up to a third on the lowest tide - during the allowed period, you will see Jersey men and women scouring the rocks to find the sought after ormer. Once found, they are prised from the underside of rocks by hand and carried to shore in a traditional ormer basket. The ormer is cooked by being beaten, then cooked in the oven as a cassoulet or served with gravy, carrots and onions. The ormer shells would traditionally have been used as decoration on houses and for jewellery, due to their striking mother-of-pearl inner.

Ormers are so rare that you will probably not find these on the menu at Jersey restaurants. Local fishermen are extremely lucky to find ormers and when they do, they are often cooked up as a family feast and rarely shared. For further information visit Jersey's Planning & Environment website.

Scallops

Hand-gathered scallops are another of the great gastronomic flavours of the Island. Bouley Bay is a great place for recreational divers to set out, but for those who prefer to stay on dry land, huge bins of scallops are landed on the granite slipways every day. Seafood vans with scallops can also be found across the island.

Oysters

The waters around Jersey are warmed by the Gulf stream and produce a large variety of seafood including crabs, sole, plaice and lobsters. Jersey also hosts a 25.1 hectare oyster farm, ‘Royal Bay Oysters’ in the Royal Bay of Grouville. Each year approximately 200 tonnes of oysters are produced, with 90% exported to France. The company also now produces in excess of 12 million partly grown oysters, known as 'half ware' for sale to French and UK shellfish farmers for on-growing to market size.

Read more on the Jersey Oyster Company website

Crabs

Brown crab, or Chancre Crab (shown above), is often the species of crab you'll find in your fresh crab sandwich or on your fruits de mer platter but it's the sweet, distinctive flesh of a spider crab, found in few places outside France, that locals enjoy. In Jersey, a long lunch picking through the shell is a treat in itself.

Best in spring and autumn, a great place to buy spider crabs is at Beresford Market, St Helier, which has been a fish market since 1841. For seafood straight from the sea, visit Faulkner’s Fisheries at the northern tip of St Ouen’s Bay.

Mussels

The vast majority of mussels you find in Jersey's restaurants come from the Jersey Oyster Company's areas in the Royal Bay of Grouville. They grow some of these mussels from seed on wooden poles, a traditional method prevalent in the Brittany and Normandy regions of France. They are called 'Bouchot' mussels and are available from mid-summer each year. With a particularly sweet and succulent flavour, they are very much in demand throughout their short season. They are always grit free because they never come into contact with the seabed. Between June and September, mussel seed is bought from Ireland where it has been settled onto ropes. These ropes are wound in spirals around the Bouchot poles. The mussels continue to grow during the winter and the following spring. The mussels are harvested in July and August using an amphibious mussel barge. The grab on the crane scoops the mussels up off the pole. Then they are washed and graded before being sold locally.