Today, gourmet tinned seafood is inescapable. In my Los Angeles neighborhood, it’s everywhere — not just in markets but by the checkout at the stationery store next door and stacked between candles and sundresses at the boutique down the street. Local restaurants serve conservas on their bar menus. But this wasn’t always the case; things were very different not so long ago.
The first time I heard about gourmet tinned seafood was in 2008, watching No Reservations with my dad. Anthony Bourdain was in Spain, fishing cockles out of what looked to us like a tin of murky dishwater, explaining that some of the world’s best and most expensive seafood comes in a can.
My dad was not having it.
“Disgusting!” he shouted, physically averting his eyes. “People are actually paying to eat this stuff?”
I imagine many Americans watching at the time felt the same. For us, tinned seafood meant one thing: tuna fish — maybe anchovies if you were a chef or a particular lover of Caesar salads. Grocery stores stocked sardines, but the most attention they received was as the preferred snack of cartoon cats. But over the past five years, tinned fish has seen a 180 in its reputation stateside.
Between 2018 and 2023, spending on canned seafood in the U.S. surged from $2.3 billion to $2.7 billion, with no slowing down in sight. A generation wary of canned tuna — its environmental baggage, its mercury risks (we see you, Jeremy Piven) — has embraced high-end tinned seafood. New brands, canneries and techniques emerge daily. Varieties from Spain, Portugal and France remain the gold standard, but other countries from the U.S. to Japan are catching up fast, as seen by the runaway success of brands like Fishwife and Siesta Co.
There’s plenty to love about tinned seafood. It’s shelf-stable, sustainable, and what the TikTokers call an “affordable luxury.” It’s one of the easiest ways to eat high-end seafood. You can cook with it (even right in the can) or eat it straight from the tin in front of the TV. And when company drops by unannounced, is there anything simpler or more elegant than a tin of fish, a bottle of white wine, and a stack of hot toast?
Back to my dad and his premature judgements about tinned seafood. Among those people “paying to eat this stuff”? His own son. I’ve become a certifiable tinned seafood enthusiast, if not a straight-up expert. What started as an interest became a passion, then a problem. My stack of tins took over a corner of my counter, then a shelf, then multiple shelves. I’ve never been interested in wine collecting, but I scroll Zillow listings fantasizing about where I’d put a fish cellar. The only decoration in my kitchen is a large picture of a sardine. I’ve tried dozens of types of tinned seafood, from classic sardines and mussels to pristine tuna and some absolutely inedible Portuguese lamprey (do not Google). Below you’ll find my absolute favorites.
With so much wrong in the world, at least we can be grateful that we are living in the golden age of tinned seafood. Whether you’re new to tinned seafood or a full bore fish freak, these cans are guaranteed to thrill and delight.
The Best Tinned Trout
Unsurprisingly, some of the best and most exciting tinned fish is from Japan, with my favorite modern twists coming from Bokksu Market. Bokksu sources its fish in the waters off of Miyazaki and packages them in a neutral cottonseed oil before amping everything up with traditional Japanese flavor combinations like umami-dense mentaiko cod roe or bold citrusy yuzu kosho. Add either of these anchovies to your tuna salad for the best tuna melt of your life.
This list only skims the surface of the vast ocean of tinned seafood available online and ready to be shipped to your door at a whim. Everyday it seems like a friend is sending me a link to a new can, or that a stack of new brightly colored tins appears at the checkout of my local market. This summer I am planning a trip to Spain, and hopefully a pilgrimage to the bar—down the coast from Barcelona— where I watched Bourdain eat those cockles all those years ago. Today, my only worry is not if I will like what I find there, given the bounty I have right here at home.
