An Afternoon Well Spent With Tofino Fisherman Lutz Zilliken

photo | Derek Cruikshank

by Bobby Lax | In this interview I sit down with Lutz Zilliken, owner of Tofino’s West Pacific Seafood and the Fish Store (because he smokes a beautiful fish and has a great big grin on as he does it).

Born and raised: Born in Weilburg Germany, moved to Canada when I was 13.

Education: Bailed after grade 11.

What brought you to Tofino? Salmon fishing and commercial diving for geoduck and sea cucumbers.

What keeps you here? In the short term my store needs fish cut. In the long term I love the summers.

The person in town you most respect and why? Spencer Vaird. I have never heard him say a single bad word about anybody.

The best place to go in the area that not many people know about? Cannery Bay. There is this dock with a slide. You got to go there to understand.

The number of times that you have moved away from Tofino and then moved back? Zero, been here since 1993.

Your favourite local artist? Can’t pick one so I would say Mark Hobson for his underwater paintings, Paul Sam for his jewellery and Keith Plummley for his beautiful wooden plates.

First place you take friends who are visiting? Out on the ocean.

Best drink in town? SoBo’s hand squeezed key lime Margaritas.

Best job you have ever had? Cod Jigger. You just had to reel them up nice and slow.

Read more

Inside The Kitchen At “Maenam” For Some Gratuitous Food Porn

A good friend of mine, Bobby from Tofino, is here staying with us for the Olympics. He’s been keeping himself busy by – among other things – picking up shifts with Angus in his kitchen at West 4th’s Maenam (my pick for the best new restaurant of the year). When I went there last night to join up with him after work, there wasn’t room enough for me to wait in the dining room or at the bar. They allowed me to hold tight in a little corner of the kitchen, where I fiddled with my new camera, a Canon T1I. And thus, the gratuitous food porn above. If it could reproduce smells half as well as it does imagery, I’d likely be felled, happy.