Salmon is a sexy fish; halibut and tuna have some clout. Lingcod, on the other hand, has no reputation whatsoever. Delicious, sustainable, and local to the West Coast, lingcod is also hideously ugly, reasonably affordable, and criminally underrated. 

As a food writer and, I’ll begrudgingly admit, a bit of a food snob, I boarded my five-day cruise through California’s Channel Islands a bit fearful of what I’d be fed. Seeing lingcod on the menu eased my mind: Any place serving the grotesque greenling had to be truly committed to doing right by the food. Its presence signaled the kitchen cared as much about the fish as they did impressing their customers.

Not that I picked this cruise for the food. Nobody picks a cruise for the food; they just hope it’s edible. I picked it because the National Geographic–Lindblad Expeditions ship left from Los Angeles, a short flight away, and still got the hell away from civilization—to a haven of biodiversity home to some 150 plant and animal species that exist nowhere else in the world.

The animals are the draw, the boat the means—getting to these far-out islands otherwise requires gruelingly long day trips or a complicated overnight permitting process for the few rugged campsites. Touring them on an expedition cruise meant waving to the passing pods of dolphins from happy hour, but it also meant sacrificing what is normally one of my favorite parts of travel—seeking out local specialties and cool restaurants.

To be fair, after the first day, when we stopped on both the front (the retro-chic vacation town of Avalon) and back (roaming bison) sides of Catalina Island, restaurants weren’t exactly an option. We bounced among three of the five islands within Channel Islands National Park—Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Anacapa. I spent my days hiking along rocky cliffs, stalking the shy island foxes with my camera, and admiring the sea lions that seemed to be dancing in the surf. The only hot table around was a spot off Anacapa where pelicans gathered to dive-bomb for anchovies.

The local specialties part, Lindblad had covered. It’s California, so of course there were sun-dried tomatoes, but also local kale and spring radishes. There was
longline-caught sockeye, wild albacore tuna over roasted orzo, and herb-crusted rockfish, all from the same part of the Pacific in which we sailed. There were wild blueberries in the morning pancakes and California Anjou pears in the desserts.

Only breakfast was served as a buffet; lunch and dinner were three-course meals with surprisingly restrained portions. More of any dish was always available on request, but the smaller plates held down on food waste, a representative from the company explained. Lindblad, like so many cruise lines, boasts of its sustainability. But it actually showed on the table in moves like forgoing shrimp in any form (very popular, but almost always farmed or fished unsustainably and/or inhumanely, save for a few expensive exceptions) and putting that lingcod on the menu.

All 100 guests and most of the 60 team members on board ate together each night, which made the kitchen’s success at serving notoriously difficult halibut quite impressive. It was a very popular choice. On the day seared lingcod graced the menu, though, few of my tablemates showed any interest; most had never heard of it. My inner salesperson came out, and by the time our ice cream was served, the mild, tender fish had won itself some new fans.

I knew it would and could, because it reflected exactly what this cruise was about: appreciating and admiring the animals that have inhabited this part of the world for more than 100,000 years—and in a manner that allows them to continue to do so. Whether by stalking the Santa Rosa fox armed only with a camera or digging into pan-seared sustainable lingcod over roasted broccolini.