Nate Li, fish cutter
Nate Li, fish cutter/fish monger, Nopa Fish. San Francisco Ferry Building 05 August 2026
“Saturdays, I'm up at 1:30 in the morning. When I used to work for a wholesaler we started at 3 in the morning so I've always been used to waking up 1 a.m., getting ready and coming out to work when it's still dark out. You know, we come out on lunchtime and all of a sudden the sun's out.”
“Nowadays my schedule is a lot different than when I used to work wholesale. So I do get to see my kids and my wife. When I get home, I'm there, cooking dinner.”
“With technology now, it's funny. I text and FaceTime my kids in the morning time (to) say, hey, have a great day. You know, just a little something to start their day off. Nice little thinking of you kind of thing.”
I'm a fish cutter at Nopa Fish, (but) they call me the fishmonger. I also manage the fish market as far as bringing in product, and making the case look nice for all the guests. And I prep all of the fish that we use in the kitchen.
I was born and raised here in San Francisco, and aside from going to Pier 39 once in a while with my parents I never had any idea about this type of industry. I've eaten seafood my entire life, but I never once thought about where it might come from.
I've been in this industry for, gosh, almost 15 years. I actually answered a Craigslist ad for a delivery driver position for this new seafood company that opened up, Water2Table. The position just evolved, I started managing the warehouse, training people, and eventually out of necessity I became a fish cutter. It's been a great ride so far.
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When I first started working for Water2Table we ran our whole operations out of an 18-foot box truck. I had a generator in there, and a large bin that we used to keep fish in. It was a refrigerated unit and I would drive around to restaurants and drop off our orders. It's funny, the neighboring restaurants’ kitchen crew would come out and they'd be like, “Hey, what do you got?” And I'd be like, “Dude, we’ve got some fresh halibut right off the boat”. We started getting more and more clients that way. People would just see me showing up at restaurants, be like what's going on over here?
Once our operations started growing having to wait for our product didn't seem very productive. I had been a butcher in the past, and I've always worked in the kitchen with my parents so I was very familiar with knives, and how to cut stuff. I was like we need a fish cutter so let me give it a shot. It's just evolved since then.
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I've never had any formal training, but I would watch videos online and think I can do that, but I think I can do it better.
The way I approach (cutting fish is) I feel it's almost like an art, you know. Nice clean strokes and just trying to get every morsel off of that frame. That's kind of been my whole thing.
It's so much different (than cutting meat). I feel cutting a fish is way less forgiving than cutting a steak off of a loin. With fish, any little deviation from your trajectory of your knife, you'll see that on the fillet. Some people when they cut salmon they like to saw - I'm like we're not cutting a piece of wood here, we're cutting fish. Be nice and smooth.
And again, that comes with having the right tools, but at the same time I feel you really have to have a feel for what you’re doing. I don't know if that makes any sense, but when I cut fish I can literally feel everything through that blade.
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In the companies that I've worked for, including the restaurant here, we specialize in the west coast fishery. I’ve cut tons of local fish - We have King salmon/Chinook salmon, and we get the California halibut which is different than the Alaskan halibut. Everyone thinks when they think halibut, they think those huge, meaty, white fillets. Our fish are a lot smaller here, perfect for crudo, and things like that.
We get tons of different rock fish here which are very much like a snapper. Tons of soles. I've had a chance to cut tunas and swordfish, so it's quite a variety of fish.
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I would say (different fish) require different knives. Different knives, and different skills because some fish, I feel, are a lot easier to cut.
One of the more difficult ones, for most people, would be the halibut. But to me, that's my favorite fish to cut. I've kind of built my following, I feel, off of showcasing our local halibut. For most people, even like Michelin star chefs, they break it down a certain way. I don't want to say they seem amazed or anything, but they're kind of like, “Dude, how do you do that?”, the way I do it.
It's all, I feel like it's all just practice. In about 13 years working for a wholesaler I've cut through probably a couple hundred thousand pounds of fish.
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I love to eat. I love flavorful stuff, and I'm always willing to try new recipes, new cuisines. I've been cooking for my family since I was 12, helping my parents out in the kitchen. And I feel like I have passed that passion onto my oldest son. He's 12 and he helps me out in the kitchen.
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I've never wanted to just go out and fish even though I've known so many fishermen over the years. It's just never really been a thing for me, which is weird. But my son, he loves fishing so much that I actually got my fishing license last October. So I've been going fishing with him and actually caught my first fish not too long ago. Eventually I do plan on getting out onto a boat, hopefully with my son.
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We live near the [Sacramento] Delta, in Oakley by Brentwood. We do a lot of fishing off the pier at the Delta, and the little neighboring creeks, stuff like that.
(My) commute [from Oakley to SF], it’s about an hour or so. I've been commuting out here to the city for … God, probably like 20 years now. It's always just kind of been a thing for me, so it's not so bad.
I start at 6 am most days, and I'm usually off by like 2:30 in the afternoon. Saturdays, we open early for the farmers market, so I'm usually here at about 3:30 in the morning, cutting fish, prepping everything, getting it ready for all the guests.
Saturdays, I'm up at 1:30 in the morning. When I used to work for a wholesaler we started at 3 in the morning so I've always been used to waking up 1 a.m., getting ready and coming out to work when it's still dark out. You know, we come out on lunchtime and all of a sudden the sun's out.
Nowadays my schedule is a lot different than when I used to work wholesale. So I do get to see my kids and my wife. When I get home, I'm there, cooking dinner.
With technology now, it's funny. I text and FaceTime my kids in the morning time (to) say, hey, have a great day. You know, just a little something to start their day off. Nice little thinking of you kind of thing.
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Honestly having worked with so many fishermen over the years, it's interesting to see what everybody thinks is the best. But having worked so closely with all the fishermen, I've gotten to see fish that was still alive, and I've also seen fish come in where it's got more than several days on it. Seeing all that has helped me here bring in the best stuff. You know, I only want to provide our guests with the best possible fish available.
So, again, the people that I work with, they're very prideful, they're very, very good at what they do.
Most fishermen that I know say this isn't a job, it's not a career, it's a lifestyle. Everybody has trucks. Everybody has boats, and they get out there any chance they get. Even when they're not working they still enjoy being out there.
Not everybody can do it. Some people are just not cut out for it. I have seen that even with what I do. I've known fish cutters that have been cutting for 20 years, and I hate to say it, but I've had people that I've trained for less than a year that hit the mark better than these experienced guys.
I feel like some people, when they've been doing something for a long time, they're afraid to change. Or they feel like they know it all.
Myself, I'm always trying to find a better way to do stuff. As I said earlier, I try to get every piece of meat off of a fish. But again I'm always looking for faster ways. Or even a different way.
Sometimes just doing a different method, just playing around, is kind of fun. That's basically what I do, I'm sitting there playing around with stuff, just seeing if this works, seeing if that works.
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Not to say all people who come out of like any kind of schooling are not good, but having an apprentice, you can mold them. An apprentice is more malleable. I feel like once you've already been in a structured system you're probably afraid to stray from that. It's what you know.
I've trained people off the street who've never cut a fish in their life, and they've turned out to be extremely good fish cutters.
Then again, I've also trained cutters who were professional butchers before. And butchers cutting meat, they hold their knives different. They have a different mentality when it comes to cutting the protein.
I used to call myself not a fish butcher, but a fish finesser. You know, you gotta have some finesse. You gotta to have the touch. You can't just go in there and start chopping stuff, it doesn't really work that way, not for our purposes.
Honestly I feel like the fish butchery world is … not so much undervalued, but not too many people know much about fish cutting. More people eat beef or pork and stuff like that so there's not very many fish cutters.
The only fish cutters are the ones working for the big distributors - working wholesale - cutting through hundreds of pounds of fish. You don't see too many fish markets like this, with an actual fish cutter.
Butchers - meat cutters - are more focused on their land based meats, and their cuts are more sudden. I don't want to say violent, but you have to use a certain amount of force to break down your animal.
Whereas a fish, if you pull too hard, if you even hold it wrong … You see pictures of people holding salmons up by their tails, that actually destroys all the meat on the inside. It just breaks up all the meat so once you cut that fillet off of the fish it's not a nice piece of salmon. It's now broken apart on the inside and it's not very pretty.
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Anytime you're using a knife and cutting lots of stuff, you're always going to have that risk of nicking yourself, potentially poking yourself.
When I was a meat cutter, I had a buddy who was my age. We were young back then, like 19, 20, so this is 20 something years ago. They always teach you when you drop a knife, never to try to catch it. You just let that thing fall to the ground. This kid, he tried to catch the knife and that thing just went point down right into his palm. Ever since I saw that I was like, not me! But I have cut myself several times over the years, (though) not as much as one would think. I'd say in 14 years of cutting fish, I've probably cut myself eight times. I'm always like, really, really careful. (But) it’s also knowing where your knife is going, having control of your blade. And not being distracted.
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Our local salmon, this is our first commercial season that we've had in about three and a half years. Early on in the late spring when we started getting the fish, they're very bright orange, but very, very lean, not much fat in them. Now, towards the later part of the summer, they've been gorging on all the anchovies and stuff, so you can actually see the marbling in the fillets. And fatty salmon, that's the best. So you definitely see, you notice that.
Some fish we have available almost year round, like our halibut. You'll notice they get a lot more row around this time.
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My favorite fish to cut, and one that I would love to catch, and just do a whole reel of my catch-to-cook would be a halibut. Our local halibut.
I feel like it takes a certain skill to cut those really nice. And it's one of our iconic fish along with the salmon. I love cutting the halibut, and the fish is so versatile, you can use it for many different things.
My wife is Mexican, and I love ceviche, so I would probably do some sort of ceviche or aguachile with our local halibut.
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As a fish cutter, I've cut more fish before my lunch than most people will cut throughout their entire lives. That’s a pretty cool thing to be able to do what I do, and do it as well as I do. I think that's pretty special.
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Nate Li, fish cutter Nopa Fish
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Photo: Robert Gumpert
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