HISTORY

My name is Leonard Sztormowski. I come from Gdynia (Poland). My father was a port worker. I - like my two brothers - tied my professional life to fish.

I took part in my first deep-sea fishing in 1977 as a serial crewman of the trawler-processor “Antlia” owned by Dalmor - a famous Polish shipowner from Gdynia. On the “Antlia”, as part of the so-called foreign exchange allowance, I was earning about $20 a month at the time.

 My 23 years in the Dalmor allowed me to circumnavigate virtually every body of water in the world and gain experience in catching most of the fish species important for fishing. Near Antarctica we fished for kergulenes. Off New Zealand - orange roughy (fish similar to redfish, but much tastier than them). Off the coast of Africa, Peru and Uruguay - hake. Around Canada's Labrador Peninsula - halibut and flounder-like plaice. In the Baltic - cod (it was found here in great abundance at the time). In the Sea of Okhotsk - pollock (although one time we caught there... a Soviet submarine).

 In 2000 I went ashore and became a chef at the “Captain's Bar” restaurant in Jastarnia (Poland), run by my family. In a short period of time, the establishment gained quite a reputation and a group of loyal customers - also from Germany, Sweden or England. Culinary reviewers praised us in the national press. The secret of our success was our extensive knowledge of fish, ingenious recipes and an uncompromising approach to the process of preparing dishes, in which quality is paramount. When You see dark spots on the coating of a fish, it's a sign that it was fried in old oil. At the “Captain's Bar” such a thing was unthinkable. Our fish always had a uniform color coating, was crispy on the surface and juicy inside.

Today my family deals with fish on an industrial scale. I still serve everyone with help, knowledge and experience.

 I treat the Leon Fisherman brand in a special way - as a return to my roots and a desire to gather under one banner my best experience in the field of fish processing and creating tasty, yet simple to prepare fish dishes.