Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
Common dentex
It knows what it is worth and waits for you to notice.
- Baked in a salt crust
- Raw, as carpaccio with oil and lemon
- Grilled whole over embers
- In French
- Denté
- Scientific name
- Dentex dentex
- In the water
- Rocky bottoms and seagrass of the Mediterranean, 15 to 200 metres, hunting at first light.
- Season & buying
- Spring and autumn, when it hunts close inshore.
- Common length
- ~50 cm
- How to identify it
- Deep oval body, bulging forehead in adults
Four prominent canine teeth at the front
Bluish sheen along the back
On the plate
White, dense, fine flesh, among the most prized in the Mediterranean.
Avoid: Elaborate preparations. This is a fish you serve plain.
Dentex change colour with age, silver and speckled when young, evenly blue as adults, so completely that they were long described as two separate species.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
