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"Nestled in a gentle bend on State Street just beyond the New
Haven-Hamden city line, this first-rate fishmonger is a boon to seafood aficionados all over the county, and a particular
favorite of Yale faculty and Japanese transplants - the latter is perhaps the highest praise possible for a purveyor of fish.
Robert
McNeil is passionate about fish. He fell in love with handling fish while in a job driving a delivery truck full of it. He
soon realized that New Haven county desperately needed his expertise, and opened Number One a quarter century ago. To this
day, Bobby regularly makes the pre-dawn trip to Fulton Fish Market, inspecting the global catch (being half Sicilian, Bobby
knows how to look a swordfish in the eye), and speeding his selections back to Hamden. He sources directly from Stonington
to Nova Scotia; when shad roe season arrives in early spring, Bobby offers Connecticut River shad to first takers, some of
whom (us, for example) consume copious amounts of roe before the season ends a few short weeks after it begins. Number One
Fish is also the place for soft-shell crabs, lobsters, and all variety of delicous mollusks."
from "The Menu," by Robin
Goldstein and Clare Murumba
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