The Encounter of the Seas, the only congress in the world that brings together gastronomy, science and the fishing industry, will be held for the sixth time in Tenerife from 16 to 19 June, bringing together marine biologists, oceanographers, fishing industry leaders and chefs to look at the challenges of preserving the oceans from different perspectives. This year's theme is 'Blue Health, reconnecting the nexus between the ocean and human health'. Over the course of three days, more than thirty speakers from the fields of science, fishing and gastronomy will discuss and explore the defence of the culture of the sea at various venues in the towns of Arona, Adeje, San Miguel de Abona and Granadilla. 

They will talk about the blue diet, rebalancing the relationship between man and fish, the challenge of increasing fish consumption in households, the link between biology, fishing and gastronomy, or how to cook the sea at different depths or in a marine paradise such as the Philippines. There will also be discussions on how to make business out of seafood, the Atlantic diet as a recipe for good ageing, and the role of seafood in mental health. Speakers from the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Arctic, the Mediterranean, the Cantabrian, the Tyrrhenian, the Alboran, the North Sea and the Philippine Sea will be present at the sixth edition of the Meeting of the Seas.

The Congress will open at noon on Sunday 16th with a popular day on the promenade of Los Cristianos beach (Arona), where different chefs from the island and the mainland will offer tastings of seafood dishes at popular prices. The conference sessions begin on Monday in the Adeje Auditorium.

The world's most cited scientist

The list of speakers at this year's 6th Meeting of the Seas is headed by the world's most renowned marine biologist and professor of fisheries science, Daniel Pauly. The researcher is known for his groundbreaking work in fish stock assessment and conservation.

The list of speakers at this year's 6th Meeting of the Seas is headed by the world's most renowned marine biologist and professor of fisheries science, Daniel Pauly. The researcher is known for his groundbreaking work in fish stock assessment and his studies on how poor overfishing practices are depleting fish stocks worldwide. Pauly is also famous for developing the FishBase software, a comprehensive database of fish species from around the world that is widely used by scientists, conservationists and fisheries managers. He has received numerous awards and recognition for his work over the past 20 years. Winner of the Tyler 2023 Environmental Achievement Award, recognised as the most important international award in the field of environmental science, health and energy. Presented by the University of Southern California, it is considered the Nobel Prize for the environment. He is the author of numerous publications and books and, since 2010, the most cited fisheries scientist in the world. For all this, the 6th Meeting of the Seas will award him the Sartun Prize, which recognises the work of individuals or institutions in defence of the oceans.

Also in attendance will be Carlos Duarte, scientific director of the Meeting of the Seas and professor of marine sciences at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. Duarte has made important contributions to the study of marine ecosystems, including the functioning of seagrass beds, salt marshes, mangroves and marine biogeochemistry. His work has been instrumental in understanding the role of the oceans in the carbon cycle and in mitigating climate change. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards and honours, including the King Jaime I Prize for the Environment and the Ramón Margalef Prize for Ecology.

Leader in fisheries management

Another big name in this issue is Árni Mathiesen, an Icelandic politician, veterinarian and expert in fisheries management. He was Iceland's Minister of Fisheries and played a key role in the management of fisheries resources, a vital sector for his country's economy, accounting for 40% of economic activity. He later became Minister of Finance. After leaving politics, he joined the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), where he is Assistant Director-General of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. Árni Mathiesen's experience and leadership in fisheries and financial management have had a significant impact on natural resource policy, both in Iceland and internationally. He is currently the Chief Advisor to the Iceland Ocean Cluster.

The fisheries sector will also be represented by Javier Garat, one of its great leaders and one of the most knowledgeable people in the world of fisheries, lobbying and regulation. He is President of the European Union Fishing Associations (Europêche), which represents 45,000 vessels, both artisanal and large-scale, and 80,000 fishermen. He is also Secretary General of the Spanish Fishing Confederation (Cepesca) and this year was appointed President of the Spanish Maritime Cluster (CME), the organisation that brings together all the economic activities, institutions, associations and companies related to the blue economy, with the aim of expanding and improving the weight of the blue economy and acting as a vehicle for communication between the sector and the government and public administrations.

Fish consumption

One of the world's leading experts, Carrie Ruxton from Scotland, the UK's best-known nutritionist for her work in the field of public health, will be at the 6th Meeting of the Seas to talk about the importance of fish consumption in the diet. The Galician doctor Rosaura Lois, President of the Scientific Committee of the Atlantic Diet Foundation, will also make an important contribution, defending this model as a way of life. She is a professor of paediatrics at the University of Santiago. She believes that the school curriculum should include a subject on healthy lifestyles, teaching people how to eat and cook.

The challenge of increasing the consumption of fish, which is so important for health, will be analysed at a round table with professionals from the food distribution sector, chefs and the heads of Pesca España, the association of producers' organisations that aims to promote the consumption of Spanish wild fish products. The marketing director of Makro España, Chema León, the chefs Ignacio Solana (Solana*, Cantabria) and José Álvarez (La Costa*, El Ejido, Almería) and the director of Pesca España, Antonio Nieto, will discuss the reasons why consumption has stagnated in recent years and why only one in four Spaniards regularly eats fresh, frozen or canned fish and aquaculture products. Households are eating less fish than ever before. It has stagnated at an all-time low of 18.5 kilos per person per year, a third less than ten years ago and a far cry from the 40 kilos at the beginning of the century.

From California comes American entrepreneur Courtney Gould, another of this year's speakers. Co-founder and CEO of New Atlantis DAO and Smarty Pants Vitamins, Gould and her team's vision is to make health care more accessible and enjoyable by creating high-quality nutritional supplements in the form of easy-to-chew gummies. This work with new sources of sustainable omega-3s for children is an excellent choice for promoting brain health.

Chef representation

The representation of chefs is also important. Ángel León (Aponiente***, Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz), a speaker at the last five editions, will return to the Encuentro de los Mares this year. The chef who has made history by taking seafood to another dimension, driven by his passion for the sea and fishing, and thanks to his profound knowledge of the enormous potential of an environment that he brilliantly projects in his cuisine. He is joined by the Torres brothers (Torres Brothers Restaurant***, Barcelona). The twins Sergio and Javier Torres have made the cuisine of the sea very present in their menus and they will be in Tenerife to tell the story. 

The same goes for Rafa Zafra (Estimar, Barcelona and Madrid), another chef with a passion for the sea, in whose restaurants the product is the star. In Tenerife, he will be accompanied by marine biologist Arnau Subías, with whom he has created GastroBio, a project designed to provide information and study everything related to seafood consumed in restaurants, with the aim of knowing the traceability of the raw material, studying its biology to understand its life cycle, analysing its habitat, its diet, its taxonomy, its morphology and the way it is caught, in order to give the product the value it deserves, especially when it comes to innovation and sustainability.

From terroir to marroir

The Italian chef who best interprets Mediterranean cuisine comes from Licata, his small hometown on the island of Sicily: Pino Cuttaia (La Madia**). A chef who coined the term "marroir" as opposed to "terroir" and who pays tribute to his family and the local fishermen in his cuisine.

He is joined by another of Italy's great seafood talents, Gianfranco Pascucci (Pascucci al Porticciolo*, Fiumicino), whose restaurant is situated on a beautiful beach surrounded by sandy hills just a few kilometres from Rome. In the same place where, more than 50 years ago, his grandfather welcomed families on day trips to his trattoria by the sea, Pascucci now defends a cuisine made by instinct, which in reality is the result of a great knowledge of raw materials and techniques, a sensitivity to sustainability and a passion for the sea and his profession.

Cantabrian chef Chele González (Gallery by Chele, Manila), who has revolutionised the gastronomic map of the Philippines, will also be at Encuentro de los Mares to talk about what for him is the Philippine contrast: cooking biodiversity in a marine paradise where the seas are punished. It is an exercise that he carries out every day in his restaurant, where Filipino and Spanish cuisine, creativity and cutting-edge innovation are intertwined.

The cuisine of the sea at the end of the world

And another Spaniard, Alberto Lozano (Huset, Svalbard), will bring his cuisine from the place where climate change is happening fastest, the Svalbard archipelago. There, in the closest inhabited town to the North Pole, he is used to temperatures of 30 degrees below zero and winds of more than 100 kilometres per hour, in a place where the wind chill is between -50 and -60 degrees. Lozano is the chef at a restaurant that is often frequented by documentary filmmakers, scientists, adventurers, members of Scandinavian royalty and even Hollywood actors such as Tom Cruise, who regularly film in the area. The sea is the main protagonist in the menu of this chef from Albacete. 

With a red Michelin star and a green star, Ola Klepp's restaurant (K2*, Stavanger) is one of Norway's great current references.  Located in the oil capital of the North Sea, it is committed to a responsible and ethical seafood cuisine, with very strict rules when it comes to sourcing products.  

Cooking the inside of the fish

In the kitchen of Álvaro Garrido's restaurant (Mina*, Bilbao), opposite the La Ribera market and the Muelle Marzana, you will find a variety of fresh seafood and fish from the nearby Cantabrian Sea. One of the pioneers of marine casquería in Tenerife, he will talk about this cuisine, which uses the inside of the fish to prepare rich and elegant dishes. The same goes for José Álvarez (La Costa*, El Ejido, Almería), whose menu features fish and seafood from the area around the island of Alborán, where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean. This area creates a very rich plankton feeding zone, which attracts many species and makes it very diverse, as well as being a very productive area.

Another of the speakers in this edition will be the Argentinian-Canarian chef Diego Schattenhofer (Taste 1973*, Playa de las Américas, Arona), whose work includes the search for scientific solutions applied to the world of gastronomy, such as the extreme curing of fish. At this year's Encuentro de los Mares, he will be discussing this refinement of the marine enzyme process with Jesús Arrieta, a scientist from the IEO-CSIC Canary Islands Oceanographic Centre, with whom he develops some of his projects.