“We’re only as good as our last smoke,” Max Bergius, founder of Secret Smokehouse, tells Broadsheet. Over the past decade, Bergius and his team have producing some of the UK’s best smoked salmon and fish by hand, in small batches using traditional East London fish-smoking techniques that were introduced by Jewish immigrants in the late 1800s.
“It’s a labour of love,” says Bergius. “A beautiful product that all stems from sourcing the best fish, and the right hands-on, artisanal process. That is what sets us apart from the much larger smoked salmon [producers] out there.”
Bergius moved to East London from the Scottish west coast 25 years ago, bringing with him a love of Scottish fish and traditional smoking. Settling in Stepney, Bergius built a cold smoker in his back garden, spending hours teaching himself how to smoke quality fish.
It didn’t take long for his Cockney neighbours to grow curious about what he was up to. A few pub chats with locals later, he discovered that “the East End was an absolute hotbed for smokehouses back in the day”, with smoked fish a staple for working-class communities. He decided it was a craft he wanted to revive and preserve, with the area’s history helping to shape the identity of Secret Smokehouse and its signature London Cure Smoked Salmon.
Bergius has devoted his practice to the traditional East London technique, which has Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status. It involves just three ingredients: Scottish salmon, sea salt for curing and oak smoke imparted during the cold-smoking process.
The London Cure method, which is specific to East London, dictates that salmon must be cured only with salt, which naturally preserves the fish and highlights its natural flavour.
The fish is then cold smoked over oak sawdust, giving a delicate smokiness rather than an overpowering hit (oak wood was historically abundant in East London smokehouses).
“If you cure it too long, it loses the right salt profile. Smoke it too hard, and the surface turns thick and chewy. Our smokers are artisanal, there’s no temperature control.”
Bergius’s salmon can be found on the menus of some of the city’s finest restaurants, included but not limited to The Ritz, Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner by Heston and The Fat Duck, and The Devonshire. It’s also available in delis like La Fromagerie, Fortnum and Mason and Bayley and Sage. You can also order the salmon online, or at Secret Smokehouse’s Hackney store
Sourcing is the starting point, and Bergius works with the natural flavour of Scottish fish from small, independent, family-run farms that are RSPCA high-welfare certified. “As soon as you knock [the fish] on the head, there’s a natural sweetness flying around in the flesh,” he says. “I love that flavour of classic oak. I wanted to keep it very, very simple – doing one thing well, getting your head down, smoking fish in a very traditional [East London] manner.”
The focus here isn’t on scale; it’s on preservation and heritage.
“We could be a lot bigger, but we don’t want to be, as the technique wouldn’t be there,” Bergius says. “I am still very hands on. I love it that way.”
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