King's Dish

Lee Williams built King's Dish around a set of kilns that had stood cold for three decades before he found them mid-renovation while expanding B&L Filleting, his fish-processing business next door. He fired the ten kilns back up and, with fishmonger Emma McKeating running the retail side, opened a shop where customers can watch some of the smoking through a viewing window. The operation now smokes up to seven and a half tonnes of haddock and cod a week, brined and cured over sawdust and North Sea air in the style used across Grimsby's docks for generations. The business holds Protected Geographical Indication status for its traditional smoked fish, and after a fire at a neighbouring smokehouse it took in extra kiln space for another curer. About fourteen people work across the filleting and smoking sides combined.