Tide to Table at Mystic Aquarium Connects What’s on the Plate to What’s Happening Beneath the Water
Tide to Table at Mystic Aquarium Connects What’s on the Plate to What’s Happening Beneath the Water Thursday, Sept. 24, bringing together chefs, scientists, farmers, conservationists and an Emmy-nominated filmmaker for an evening built around one deceptively simple idea: some of New England’s best meals begin in the ocean.
The three-hour event combines a documentary screening, a conversation about the health of New England’s coastal waters, tastings from regional chefs, an open bar and after-hours access to Mystic Aquarium’s Main Gallery.
But the food isn’t separate from the environmental discussion. It’s the point of it.
The fish on a restaurant plate, the shellfish growing along the coast, the people who harvest them and the marine animals living in those same waters are all connected to the health of a single ecosystem.
Tide to Table is designed to put that entire chain in the same room.
Rhode Island’s Wild Coast Comes to the Screen
The evening begins with an exclusive 20-minute preview of Tides of Change, the second episode of Ocean State: Rhode Island’s Wild Coast.
Directed and produced by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Tomas Koeck, the four-part PBS documentary series turns its cameras toward the surprisingly wild marine world just beyond southern New England’s beaches and harbors.
Tides of Change focuses on winter, one of the most difficult seasons for wildlife along the coast. Rescue and research teams follow animals facing changing conditions, injury and other threats as scientists work to understand and protect the ecosystem.
There’s an especially appropriate Mystic connection.
The episode includes Mystic Aquarium’s Animal Rescue Team, bringing some of the work normally happening behind the scenes at the Aquarium onto the screen.
That makes the screening more than a film being shown in an interesting venue. Some of the people and conservation work represented in the documentary are part of the place where the audience is sitting.
From the Film to the Dinner Plate
After the screening, Koeck joins James Beard Award-winning chef David Standridge, members of Mystic Aquarium’s Animal Rescue staff and other local experts for a panel discussion.
The subject moves directly from what guests have just watched to something much more familiar: dinner.
What happens when warming waters, changing seasons, pressures on marine wildlife and the health of fisheries begin affecting the food system?
And what role can fishermen, farmers, scientists, restaurants and consumers play in keeping New England’s coastal food system viable?
It’s an unusually broad way of approaching sustainable seafood because the conversation isn’t limited to which fish someone should or shouldn’t order.
Instead, Tide to Table looks at the ecosystem that makes the meal possible in the first place.
David Standridge Has Been Building a Menu Around These Questions
For Standridge, the connection between conservation and cooking isn’t simply a theme created for Thursday night’s event.
At The Shipwright’s Daughter in downtown Mystic, his cooking has become closely associated with the waters and farms of southern New England. The restaurant’s menus change with what’s available from regional fishermen, growers and producers.
Standridge received the 2024 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northeast, giving Mystic one of the country’s most closely watched chefs while bringing national attention to the kind of local sourcing that sits at the center of Tide to Table.
That approach asks a chef to work with the ecosystem rather than demand that the ecosystem continually supply whatever a restaurant wants.
It can mean making use of abundant or overlooked species, adapting menus as availability changes and finding culinary value in ingredients that might otherwise receive little attention.
Tide to Table expands that philosophy beyond one restaurant kitchen.
Then Everybody Eats
After talking about the ecosystem, guests get to taste what it produces.
The second half of the evening shifts into an after-hours Aquarium experience with complimentary tastings from New England chefs and an open bar.
Guests will also have access to the Aquarium’s Main Gallery after regular visiting hours.
It’s a setting that makes the connection unusually difficult to miss.
Instead of discussing sustainable seafood in a conference room, guests move from watching New England’s marine wildlife on screen and hearing from people who work with the coastal environment to tasting food prepared by chefs while surrounded by the Aquarium’s marine exhibits.
The participating organizations reinforce the same idea.
The evening brings together The Shipwright’s Daughter, Mystic Aquarium, Eating with the Ecosystem, The Yellow Farmhouse and Stoneridge, organizations approaching the regional food system from different directions.
Eating With the Ecosystem
Eating with the Ecosystem is particularly important to the concept behind the night.
The nonprofit works to strengthen connections among New England’s marine ecosystems, commercial fisheries and the people who eat seafood.
One of the problems facing regional fisheries is that consumers tend to concentrate demand on a relatively small number of familiar species, even though New England waters contain a much broader variety of edible seafood.
A more diverse regional diet can give fishermen more markets for what is actually available while reducing dependence on a handful of heavily demanded species.
That changes the idea of sustainable seafood from simply choosing something carrying the right label into a larger question: Can we learn to eat from the ecosystem we actually have?
It’s a question particularly suited to southeastern Connecticut and Rhode Island, where fishing, aquaculture, restaurants, tourism and marine conservation all meet within a relatively small stretch of coastline.
An Evening With a Purpose Beyond Dinner
The $175 ticket isn’t simply admission to a high-end tasting event.
Proceeds support the research, conservation and outreach work of Mystic Aquarium and Eating with the Ecosystem, including efforts to develop community-based approaches to protecting coastal waters.
That gives Tide to Table an interesting circular structure.
The coastal environment provides the ingredients. Chefs turn those ingredients into dinner. Scientists and conservationists explain what’s happening to the ecosystem producing them. And the event raises money to support work intended to protect that ecosystem.
For three hours, the food chain becomes visible.
.
Details
Event: Tide to Table at Mystic Aquarium
Date: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026
Time: 6–9 p.m.
Location: Mystic Aquarium
Address: 55 Coogan Boulevard, Mystic, CT 06355
Admission: $175 per person
Film: 20-minute preview of Tides of Change, Episode 2 of Ocean State: Rhode Island’s Wild Coast
Filmmaker: Tomas Koeck
Panel: Koeck, James Beard Award-winning chef David Standridge, Mystic Aquarium Animal Rescue staff and other local experts
Food: Complimentary tastings from New England chefs
Drinks: Open bar
Aquarium Access: After-hours access to the Main Gallery
Presented With: The Shipwright’s Daughter, Mystic Aquarium, Eating with the Ecosystem, The Yellow Farmhouse and Stoneridge
Beneficiaries: Proceeds support research, conservation and outreach efforts by Mystic Aquarium and Eating with the Ecosystem
Featured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people, location, or activities shown.