Joe Gurrera - Citarella

Everything begins with Joe.
To understand his passion for freshness, do what he’s done for decades: walk into the fish market at midnight to choose the finest. The New Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx is second in size only to Tokyo’s Tsukiji market, with wholesale sellers going back generations. Boats bring in catches every day, and workers scramble to haul ice-cold seafood on to iced tables for sale.

Our goal is the freshest, most pristine seafood, and our purchase each day is dictated by what the ocean has to offer.

Seafood is naturally varied, and sometimes the size or quality we want may not be available. Joe himself will walk the stalls, getting there after few hours sleep to pick out the best of the best through a din of sale.

“Not everything is equally fresh. If a boat stays out for seven days, our job is to select the fish from days six and seven, not one and two,” says Joe.
From working with the fishermen at the market, we’ve built 40 years of close relationships, earning our reputation as a fixture of New York’s seafood scene. Today, this relationship extends to Joe’s seafood supply company, Lockwood and Winant, building connections to NYC’s top restaurants.

Our site is strategically located near the New Fulton Fish Market in Hunts Point, so once selected by our product experts, fish doesn’t travel far before it’s in our trusted hands. We ship directly to our customers and stores from this location.

With thorough knowledge of its perishability, we handle seafood the right way! Experts take care of all the seafood we have to offer in refrigerated rooms… and lots and lots of ice keep it Citarella fresh. Our fishmongers skillfully go through each order by hand, selecting, cutting and preparing it just for you. Each item is wrapped in waxed paper, sealed in plastic and carefully packaged with ice packs in insulated, leak proof boxes to maintain the quality and integrity of your products. From there, priority overnight ensures the order arrives the next day, ready to go for your latest culinary masterpiece. You will get it fresh and to keep it fresh, we suggest immediately refrigerating or freezing all perishable items.

For our stores, the catch travels in our fleet of refrigerated trucks, carefully managed by expert fishmongers on location who can advise you on flavor, texture, cooking method and more. Our chefs use the haul to make delicious fresh dishes, like our savory fish cakes, popular poached salmon, or traditional gefilte fish. We also butcher for you: whole cleaned, steaks, even fillets.

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A LIFETIME IN SEAFOOD.
COVER TO COVER.
With a passion for seafood more than 40 years in the making, no one is more qualified to teach you how to cook fish than Citarella’s Owner and Original Fishmonger, Joe Gurrera. Joe Knows Fish is collection of his very best, tried-and true recipes that focuses on simple preparations and the absolute freshest ingredients.

FRESH FROM THE SOURCE
At Citarella, we’ve been sourcing the freshest seafood since 1912. So, we still do some things the old-fashioned way.

Many of the fresh fish we sell—flounder, fluke, striped bass—are wild caught (yes, with a line and a hook) by fisherman with principles who wake early and brave the waters of Long Island Sound and the cold Atlantic beyond. Our fishmongers are still trained to wield a knife like an artisan. They hand-cut, hand-shuck, and hand-prepare all of our seafood to order. You can search far and wide and you won’t find many fishmongers who can still debone an Atlantic-caught shad. But you will find them at Citarella.

We still value relationships more than anything. With our trusted purveyors who work the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean. Some of them for many generations. And with our close-knit staff of almost 1000, too. Some see those bonds as a thing of the past. But they shouldn’t be. They are our heart and soul. And if you ask any of the almost five million New Yorkers who shop at our stores each year, they might tell you our steadfast commitment to quality and customer service recalls another time, too. But there’s nothing old-fashioned about Citarella seafood delivery.

Because at Citarella, we pride ourselves on having the freshest seafood in the country. Period. That means we’ll use every 21st century technology available to shorten the time between when a fish is in the water and when it’s on your plate. All of the fresh—never frozen—seafood on our site can be shipped anywhere in the continental United States priority overnight. Here on our website, choose whatever your palate desires today, and select your butchering preference, and our fishmongers will hand prepare your order. Our packaging is state of the art.

While others might, we never cryovac our fresh fish. Instead, each item is wrapped in waxed paper, sealed in plastic and carefully packaged with ice packs in an insulated, leak proof box designed specifically to maintain quality and integrity. And that means, wherever you are, if you get a taste for succulent Nova Scotia lobsters, fresh PEI oysters, robust wild swordfish steaks, or seasonal Florida stone crab claws on a Tuesday, we can have it at your doorstep—fresh and ready to eat—on Wednesday.

And what’s more modern than that?