Striped Bass

Chef Floyd Cardoz, an avid fisherman, will focus on seafood dishes at his upcoming downtown-Manhattan restaurant, North End Grill. A favorite is this summery grilled bass with ginger-spiced tomato salad.

Made with a fresh heirloom tomato salsa, these fish tacos are the perfect summer dish.

Eric Ripert is a master at combining French technique with Asian ingredients. Here, he creates a rich, red wine-ginger sauce and tangy, Thai-inspired mango salad to go with mild baked striped bass.

Grappa, an Italian spirit, is made from grape pomace (the skins, seeds and stems left over from winemaking). Its slight earthiness and high alcohol make it perfect for curing fish, as in David Page's meaty striped bass fillets here, delicately scented with fennel.

Chef Bruce Sherman will only cook with sustainable fish. (Download Seafood Solutions: A Chef's Guide to Sourcing Sustainable Seafood at chefscollaborative.org.) While in the Galapagos, he used wahoo in this recipe; in Chicago he opts for striped bass or halibut. To prepare the carrots, he cooks them without stirring until they blister, then glazes them in cider and cider vinegar.

A growing number of chefs are becoming eco-activists and buying only sustainable seafood. To do the same at home, check out Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch (montereybayaquarium.org) and Environmental Defense's Oceans program (environmentaldefense.org) for the most up-to-date information. You can also use farm-based striped bass (which are raised in ponds and tanks that limit pollution).

Lightly sauteed onions and garlic, plus ground coriander, stirred into a salsa-like chopped tomato-and-chile salad make a fantastic spicy accompaniment for this simple fish.

Cyril Renaud first made this fish dish in winter with oranges and liked it so much he adapted it for the warm months, using plums instead. Almost everything about this recipe helps make it both delicious and healthy. Grilling the plums and fish turns them nicely smoky with almost no added fat. And roasting vegetables en papillote (in a paper or foil pouch) intensifies their taste; more flavor comes from a little tamari.

Steamed fish may sound plain, but this version is packed with flavor: It's cooked in a ginger-and-sesame soy sauce and topped with frizzled jalapeños and scallions. "I think part of the reason people love this dish is that the sauce is a really good vehicle for rice," Andrea Reusing says.

This hot-and-sweet, Asian-inspired dish from chef Andrew Zimmern pairs an easy but flavorful marinade for grilled fish with an intense, savory caramel sauce.

Michael Schwartz is a firm believer that everything is better with bacon (or some kind of cured pork). That's why he sautes brussels sprouts in pancetta to make them rich and meaty, then serves them alongside striped bass simply pan-roasted with salt and pepper. A tangy lemon aioli completes the dish.

Michel Nischan only cooks sustainable seafood, like the wild striped bass here.

This lemony four-herb butter is delicious with any type of white fish. Linda Aldredge serves it with the largemouth bass and small perch she catches in the pond on her property.

Asked what he'd pair with the clean, fresh Anderson Valley Poleeko Gold, an American pale ale--and one of his favorite beers on the trip--Sang Yoon suggests this combination of grilled fish with roasted cherry tomatoes, potatoes and cauliflower tossed in fragrant cumin-coriander butter. "My friend James Bygrave has a boat with a killer grill. We always fire it up and make this fish after going out on the water," he says.