“I'm back doing what I wanted to do at the very beginning when I smoked fish”, Frank Hederman wrote a couple of years ago. Like every artisan, the wheel turns full circle – a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay – and you are back where you began, which is where you always belonged. Mr Hederman is a fish smoker and he has no peer in these islands when it comes to smoking salmon and mackerel, eel and mussels.
Beech wood means that his smoke effect on the fish and shellfish is light, persistent – a fingerprint rather than a thumbprint – and his fish has a tingle factor like no other, with the entire organoleptic panoply of the smoke summoned to ally with the fish flavours. It's world-class work. Mrs Hederman – better known to the Bridgestone Guides as Caroline Workman – has brought a sympathetic and creative skillset of her own to the Belvelly Smokehouse, with lovely fish pies and cakes that complement the smoked fish just perfectly.
