Word of mouth: The sustainable fish pioneer Fish has long been a consuming passion for Caroline Bennett, 46, who with her restaurant Moshi Moshi brought the first kaiten (conveyor-belt) sushi to London in the early 1990s - three years before Yo! Sushi opened. Bennett had become enthralled by Japan at the age of 18, when she visited in her gap year. I was fascinated by the idea that Japan was so modern and sophisticated, yet so utterly different," she says. On her return to London in 1988 she studied Japanese and Economics at Soas, before working as a fund manager for Invesco Asset Management. Bennett found herself 'craving the sushi iodine freshness of the sea plus the hit of soy and umami comfort of miso soup. Her plan was to bring the simplicity, artistry and quality of Japanese food to London, but, she admits, she 'had no idea how tough it would be. Bennett had no experience of restaurants, except for Kenwards in Lewes, where she had worked while studying for her A-levels. None the less, in 1994, while still working for Invesco, Bennett opened the first Moshi Moshi, at a site close to Liverpool Street Station, having raised capital from friends in the City and benefited from a Government-backed small-firm loan-guarantee scheme. It was challenging - Bennett was seconded to Tokyo only two months after opening Moshi Moshi, and continued to juggle that and the restaurant until 1999. What is more, at that time knowledge of Japanese food in Britain was still in its infancy, even among keen restaurant-goers. People thought that I was mad, that conveyor-belt sushi was a gimmick that would never catch on, and that the idea of the British public acquiring a taste for raw fish was inconceivable," Bennett says. Moshi Moshi was an immediate success. One persistent problem, however, was the quality of the fish in Britain. It was not as fresh as she and her chefs were used to in Japan. She could find excellent farmed Loch Duart salmon, but no white fish of comparable freshness. But the moment that made Bennett fundamentally re-assess Moshi Moshi's sourcing of fish was when she began to have difficulties obtaining the highly prized toro, or bluefin tuna belly. After a few telephone calls to suppliers I realised that I was witnessing an ecological disaster at first hand," she recalls. Moshi Moshi immediately took bluefin tuna off the menu, even though Bennett knew that there was no suitable substitute. Caroline Bennett has now founded Pisces, an initiative between fishing families and chefs who want to use sustainable local fish In 2004 Bennett met a Cornish fisherman, Chris Bean, at the Salone del Gusto slow food festival in Turin, which proved a turning point in her growing commitment to ocean sustainability. Bean and his son, Dylan, and daughter, Lorna, used only traditional static gill nets and sold direct to their local market. Bean offered to rush his catch of the day to London, giving him a market for under-utilised species such as dab, whiting, pouting and wrasse. Since then Bennett has continued to improve how Moshi Moshi buys fish (replacing endangered eel with Cornish dog fish, for example). As a result of this relationship, Bennett, together with a friend, the biologist Malcolm MacGarvin, founded Pisces, an initiative to build direct links between independent fishing families and chefs wanting to use better-quality, more sustainable local fish, to pay fair prices and be flexible about their catch of the day. Thanks to Pisces, small fisheries around the country are beginning to flourish again. Most crucially, they can guarantee Moshi Moshi and other London restaurants, including the Duke of Cambridge and Bistro Bruno Loubet, properly sustainable fish. As for the future, Bennett is seeking additional investors for Pisces, and aims to be supplying about 100 restaurants within two years. While she has no plans to open further Moshi Moshi ('the city is saturated with sushi"), she is working on a new cafe concept, still under wraps, to take beyond London. pisces-rfr.org