Where anglers can get their own catch cooked in Singapore, with fees from $12

SINGAPORE – After a day at sea, anglers with a prized catch face another challenge: finding someone willing to clean and cook it.

Few restaurants and zi char stalls offer the service. Those that do say it began with requests from regular customers who are angling enthusiasts.

The cooking charge alone may not be profitable, but it is often done as an act of goodwill to spur business. Customers usually also order other dishes, return to the eatery and recommend it to friends.

Restaurants cooking wild-foraged seafood for customers were in the spotlight recently after Chinese restaurant Havelock Palace prepared and served seafood collected from Changi Beach. Video snippets of the incident circulated online, drawing widespread criticism over the over-harvesting of marine life from an intertidal area.

The restaurant has since apologised on its Facebook page and now prohibits food from unauthorised or unverified sources from entering its kitchen.

The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) says no regulations prohibit food businesses from preparing wild-foraged seafood or other customer-supplied ingredients. But they must ensure that food prepared on their premises is fit for human consumption and handled under sanitary conditions.

SFA also cautions that marine life collected from public shores may contain bacteria, viruses, parasites, biotoxins and contaminants, some of which may not be eliminated after cooking. Businesses accepting such catches must exercise caution and due diligence.

Requests from regulars

Food business owners who accept wild-foraged seafood or ingredients from customers say that, so far, they have not encountered wild-foraged shellfish.

Customers who bring their own fish are mostly angling enthusiasts whose catches are from offshore angling trips, while others bring seafood bought from wet markets and suppliers.

At Black Pearl Steakhouse in Upper East Coast Road, chef-owner Jonathan Tan, 56, began cooking customers’ catches six years ago, at the request of friends from his angling group.

His restaurant receives such requests once or twice a week. Customers usually bring fish such as coral trout, tuskfish, red snapper and grouper, weighing 2kg to 5kg.

Tan may turn it into fish and chips or curry, or grill or bake it with sauces not found on his menu, such as saffron-infused beurre blanc – a twist on the classic French butter sauce.

Prices start at $40++ for one cooking style, including cleaning. “The cooking fee is to cover the costs for ingredients, gas and labour,” says Tan, citing the work involved in gutting, scaling, filleting and deboning a fish. So far, these customers also order steaks and other dishes, and return often to dine on his regular menu. 

Tan checks the smell, texture and colour of every fish before cooking. He once rejected a salmon trout brought in from New Zealand because its flesh had become slimy. The customer agreed to discard the fish and Tan ensured that all surfaces it touched were sanitised.

“My team and I are especially vigilant when handling fish or other ingredients brought by customers. We do not handle these together with our own food supplies to prevent any contamination.” 

At Fatty Fong Seafood Restaurant in New Upper Changi Road, owner Tan Yoke Fong, 50, has accepted anglers’ catches since the restaurant opened 11 years ago. Usually, customers bring in golden snapper, grouper and coral trout which they caught themselves.

Cooking starts at $25 a dish, with cleaning and gutting charges from $5. For example, preparing a 3kg fish three ways – such as deep-fried, as curry fish head, with bitter gourd and fermented beans – may cost about $80 including cleaning.

Customers usually inform her ahead of time and agree on the fee before they bring in their fish or seafood.

Regulars know to avoid the rush hours between 6pm and 8pm, and any frozen fish must be thawed when handed over. Customers must also be prepared to wait at least an hour for the fish to be cleaned and cooked, she says.

Preparing a large, ungutted fish takes time and can hold up the kitchen during peak periods. Tan says there are also regulars who bring in large Sri Lankan crabs of over 1kg for her chefs to cook, as the live crabs she has weigh between 350g and 500g. The cooking fee for crabs starts at $35 a kg. 

XH Delicious Seafood, a zi char stall which opened in Temple Street in April 2026, handles such customer-supplied ingredients once or twice a week.

Head chef Devid Retanasamy, 42, charges $12 to steam an under-1kg fish Hong Kong-style, or $18 to prepare it Teochew-style, in assam or curry.

Retanasamy asks customers to gut and scale their own fish or pay an additional $5 for the service, and to drop it off between 1pm and 2pm, well before dinner time.

He recently turned away a customer who arrived with an ungutted fish at 7pm, which is the peak rush hour for the stall.

He also rejected an ang zhor (golden snapper) that had spent months in a freezer because of its strong odour and mushy flesh. The customer agreed to discard the fish.

Retanasamy says in Mandarin: “I won’t cook fish that has gone bad because it is not safe for the customers to consume. They may blame me later if they fall sick from eating it. I am extra careful when it comes to handling items brought by the customers. I usually ask them where they get it from.”

For freshness and convenience

Some customers who live nearby even buy fish and prawns from supermarkets like Sheng Siong or the Chinatown Complex wet market for Retanasamy to cook.

One customer recently brought a vacuum-packed 300g kangaroo loin steak he had bought locally. Retanasamy charged the customer $12 for stir-frying it with spring onion and ginger.  

Customers who bring their own fish often order other dishes. He recounts how a party of eight recently spent more than $200, after bringing along a grouper and ordering five other dishes and fried rice.

Even for smaller groups who bring two fish of their own for him to steam, and spend only $10 on a plate of vegetables and four bowls of rice at $1.50 each, Retanasamy welcomes such customers, saying: “It is better than having no business and cultivating goodwill can go a long way.” 

Civil servant Ang Guan Piew, 52, who goes angling up to three times a month, usually around the Southern Islands, frequents Black Pearl Steakhouse, among other spots, which will accept his catches. He usually calls ahead, delivers his catch earlier – around 5pm – and tries to visit on weekdays when the restaurant is less busy.

The draw for him is eating fish freshly caught from the sea at its optimal freshness. 

His group of four usually orders four or five other dishes from the regular menu and spends up to $300. “We want to eat other dishes like steak. It is also to support the restaurant and not take advantage of it. It is running a business after all,” he says.

“It is worth it because if you were to buy ingredients to cook a curry, the cost is easily more than the cooking fee and there is the hassle of cleaning up afterwards. Our home cooking appliances cannot compare with those in the professional kitchens.”

Communications manager Nigel Lian, 37, who goes angling about once a month, sometimes heads to Fatty Fong Seafood Restaurant after returning to shore, so he and his friends can consume what they reeled in right away. “Zi char stalls and restaurants have woks large enough to deep-fry or steam even a 2kg fish whole. They also have large serving plates, which we do not have at home,” he says.

He enjoys being able to choose how the fish is prepared. “We are unlikely to deep-fry a whole fish at home because it requires so much oil and is messy to clean up afterwards.”

He adds: “It is not just the convenience. It is also the satisfaction of eating our own catch fresh off the boat.”