By Sara Poirier Correa
Sentinel Correspondent
For 30 years, Tony Norado has been starting his day at night, when most everyone else is sleeping.
Multiple times a week, the Bon Ton Fish Market owner spends four or five hours choosing from the day’s best catch at the Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx, N.Y., before heading to his Bruce Park Avenue store in Greenwich. Once there he restocks his showcase, which is emptied every day, and prepares for the new day’s business.
With so many options to choose from, Norado said he makes every effort to ensure top quality and consistency.
“We pride ourselves on all the seafood we sell,” he said.
“Bringing the highest quality seafood to my customers and the response that, ‘It’s the best fish that I’ve ever had,’ that’s what keeps me going,” Norado added.
A Ridgewood, N.J., native who now lives in Fairfield County, Norado is Bon Ton’s third owner. Originally built as Koellmer Brothers, the store began at the top of Greenwich Avenue in 1902. It moved down the Avenue in the late 1960s and then made its way to Bruce Park Avenue a few years ago.
Norado, a then 22-year-old finance major just out of college, bought the business in 1986 when he found the recent stock market crash had left the job market a bleak existence for people with his background. The then-owner showed him the ropes of the fish business, and in 2007, the Greenwich Historical Society awarded Bon Ton Fish Market for being the longest running food establishment in town.
Offering an array of fish–from sole to swordfish to sea bass and tuna–all the product brought into Bon Ton Fish Market is cut in the store, not pre-cut when Norado buys it.
“Ninety percent of fish markets buy from a filet house in the [Fulton Fish] Market,” he said. “I don’t know the quality of the product in those filet houses. You don’t see the fish, and that’s the key.”
“It’s the best fish your money can buy,” Norado added of the product Bon Ton sells. “Nobody does what we do.”
The Bon Ton crew, many of who, Norado said, have been there for more than 10 years, also hand slice its own smoked salmon. Most customers, according to the storeowner, usually purchase pre-sliced smoked salmon in a vacuum-sealed bag.
“Hand cutting fish is a lost art,” he said.
Norado said Bon Ton is always looking to try new things, including hiring a new chef to prepare specialty items for sale, like shrimp gumbo and lobster bisque.
“I’m always looking for new products in the seafood industry as well as the old staples,” Norado said of his business, which is open seven days a week and offers curbside pickup for those on the go.
Bon Ton offers a full line of caviar, as well as clams, oysters, shrimp, crab, mussels and lobster. The grey sole, Dover sole and wild king salmon are popular sellers, Norado said.
Not only does Norado sell the product, but he also eats it at home three times per week, he said. Sole and swordfish are his favorites.
Having served presidents, kings and queens, movie stars and sports figures alike, Norado said having the Bon Ton name synonymous with quality is the goal, and to do that he’s happy right where he is.
“So many guys try to open five stores and then you lose the quality,” Norado said. “It’s the kind of business where I have to be here every day. It’s a specialty store.”
His vision for the next five years: “I hope Bon Ton continues fulfilling Greenwich’s needs for the highest quality seafood.”
For more about Bon Ton Fish Market, stop by the store at 100 Bruce Park Avenue, call 203-869-0462 or visit bontonfishmarket.com.
