The fish king

Just outside of Munich, Nikolai (“Niki”) Birnbaum breeds the best trout, char and huchen for high-end restaurants and passionate home cooks.

Spring is in full bloom here to the west of Lake Ammer. The fields are filled with catchfly, irises and even orchids. We’re surrounded by mighty trees and gently lapping water. It’s the perfect place to live if you’re a little fish, like a char. At Nikolai Birnbaum’s fish farm, char have a good life with plenty of pure, oxygen-rich water straight from the source and delicious food that doesn’t contain growth accelerators or antibiotics. Here, the tiny restocking fish can grow slowly and in peace. Even when the fish leave to fulfil their culinary destiny after several happy years here, they are treated with great care and attention. Niki Birnbaum’s fish usually end up in Michelin-starred kitchens that are increasingly choosing to work with sustainable, authentic freshwater fish from the local area.

When you see how calmly and thoughtfully Niki (53) goes about his business as he fills his basin with water and shows us his tiny fish, some of which will end up weighing as much as four kilograms, you can tell that he pays great attention to his work. Even though he’s a fish breeder, he doesn’t want his fish to grow as quickly as possible for as cheaply as possible. Instead he treats the fish with respect and focuses on quality rather than quantity.

More than 40 tonnes of fish a year

„I can rely on Niki,” explains Munich-based, two-star chef Tohru Nakamura who is, like many of his colleagues, a regular customer of Birnbaum’s fish farm in Epfenhausen near Landsberg am Lech. “He tells me which fish are the best or advises me to wait a couple of months for certain species until they have grown to the right size. I always take his advice and so always have the best fish on my menu.”

The fish farm, which is 130 years old, was previously leased by Niki’s parents and today Niki not only breeds char, but also sea trout, salmon trout, golden trout and rainbow trout, pike, zander, wels catfish, carp and sturgeon. Even huchen taste incredibly fresh after being raised in the crystal clear, constantly moving waters here. The farm produces over 40 tonnes of fish a year.

Hungry for young fish

There are several small sources around the farm that produce up to 60 litres of incredibly clear water per minute. They feed the farm’s 26 different natural ponds, basins and channels. The water flows continuously in sweeping loops around the 25,000 square metre site at an almost constantly cool temperature of around 8 degrees Celsius. The fish are separated by age so that the larger fish don’t eat the smaller ones. Char, for example, are predatory fish that sometimes even eat their own offspring. “As they are fed with automatic feeders, the fish become lazy and so the younger ones become easy prey,” explains Niki, who lives in a house on the edge of the carp pond with his family. They can take a slide straight into the water for their morning swim during the summer months.

You can also see how carefully he handles his fish by how sustainably he stocks the bodies of water on the farm. “There are two tonnes of fish in here,” Niki tells us while pointing to a pond which has an aerator to enrich the water. He also revealed that he likes fish so much that he spends a lot of his free time fishing. “With a greater supply of oxygen, I could breed up to ten tonnes of fish in here. However, if we ever have a power-cut all the fish would die within a few hours.” This way, his young fish have more space, develop better and are better protected against diseases.

Slow groth

It takes a while for the restocking fish, which are just a few millimetres long when Birnbaum buys them from a specialist company, to become fully grown. “The restocking fish need to be left to grow for around a year to double in size,” explains Birnbaum as he perches on the bank in his green chest waders and wellies with his unmistakeable, widebrimmed fishing hat on his head.

As such, a long time passes before a char or trout weighing around 400 grammes is ready to be sold. A fully-grown sea trout, a species that Tohru Nakamura loves working with, can weigh up to two or three kilograms. “I prefer to use larger fish,” explains Nakamura. “They have a greater fat content and the flesh is firmer.” His top tip: “Leave the fish to rest for a few days. If you eat it straight away, the flavour isn’t as developed.”

The fish, who aren’t destined to live long, are sold to restaurants and delicatessens directly from the on-site shop. A fairly large proportion of these fish are taken to a shed directly on the water. Here, they’re put in a blackened oven made from firebricks over alder and beech woodchips seasoned with juniper berries and bay leaves and then left to smoke until they turn a golden-yellow colour.

In autumn there's even char caviar

From October to December, Niki Birnbaum produces his speciality: rare, hand-picked char caviar. “Each female char that weighs around 400 grammes only produces 30 grammes of caviar,” he explains from his new processing building where eight employees sit around a large table, expertly filleting the char and trout before the fish is vacuum-packed.

Niki’s daughter Lea (25) is also here today. The trained fish farmer, fish farm manager and Niki’s chosen successor, has not only inherited her father’s blue eyes, but also his passion for fish. Together with her partner, Lucas Eibl, Lea has been able to expand the farm’s offerings. Lucas trained in some top restaurants so now the farm also sells products like sea trout ceviche with mango and coriander and smoked fish rillettes.

Text: Peter Würth Fotos: Hoang Dang

fischzucht-birnbaum.de