Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
Dusky grouper
It watched you arrive and seems pleased about it.
- Roasted whole, the only cooking that suits it
- Thick steaks in the oven
- In a rock-fish soup with scorpionfish
Protected species
It is eaten in some cultures. It is also a protected species, and we have no wish to encourage that.
- In French
- Mérou brun
- Scientific name
- Epinephelus marginatus
- Status
- Protected species
- In the water
- Rocky scree and drop-offs of the Mediterranean, from the shore to 300 metres, usually in a crevice.
- Season & buying
- Fishing it has been banned in the French Mediterranean since 1993.
- Common length
- ~80 cm
- How to identify it
- Enormous head, about a third of the body
Projecting lower jaw and thick lips
Rounded tail fin
On the plate
White, thick, firm flesh, long held to be the finest in the Mediterranean.
Avoid: Simply eating it. The moratorium still stands, and it is what saved the species.
A grouper is born female and turns male around its twelfth year, so taking the big ones removes every male from a population.