Peixe espada preto and Sablefish are different fish, but they're close enough in the kitchen to stand in for one another.
Trichiuridae
Peixe-espada-preto
Peixe-espada-preto is the black scabbardfish — a long, ribbon-thin, jet-black deep-water fish with enormous eyes and teeth, caught on longlines set 800 to 1,200 metres down off Madeira and the Azores. It looks alarming and tastes nothing like it looks: the flesh is white, soft, almost boneless and very mild, closer to a delicate white fish than to anything oily. In Madeira it is the local dish, espada com banana, fried in a light coating and served with fried banana and passionfruit, a combination that sounds implausible and works. It is also common in Lisbon fish markets. The name causes constant confusion in Portuguese: peixe-espada is not espadarte. Espadarte is swordfish — a large, meaty, steak-cut pelagic fish grilled like tuna — while this is a soft-fleshed deep-sea fish usually sold as thin fillets. They are not substitutes for one another.
Full guide →Anoplopomatidae
Sablefish
Sablefish is sold nearly everywhere as black cod, and it is not a cod — Anoplopoma fimbria is the sole commercial member of its own family, a deep-water North Pacific fish caught on longlines from Oregon to the Bering Sea. The name matters less than the fat. It carries the highest oil content of any Alaskan whitefish, around 15 percent, which is why the flesh is pearly white, breaks into unusually large silky flakes, and is close to impossible to overcook: the fat keeps it moist long after a halibut of the same thickness has dried out. That richness is what made it the classic fish for miso marinade in Japan, where it is gindara, and the reason a black cod fillet costs several times what a true cod does. Two naming confusions are worth carrying to the counter. In Spanish it is bacalao negro, but so — loosely and often — is Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), the fish sold in English as Chilean sea bass and in Argentina and Chile as merluza negra; they are unrelated, from opposite hemispheres, though both are fatty white deep-water fish and cook similarly. And in English, sablefish is regularly muddled with the black scabbardfish of Madeira and mainland Portugal, another dark deep-water species with a comparable reputation and a completely different body.
Full guide →Regularly confused in English, and unrelated. Sablefish is a thick-bodied North Pacific fish sold as black cod; the black scabbardfish of Madeira and Sesimbra is a long, ribbon-thin deep-water species landed at over a kilometre down. Both are dark-skinned, fatty and prized, but one is cut into steaks and the other filleted off a strap of a body.
| Country | Peixe-espada-preto | Sablefish |
|---|
| 🇺🇸United States | Black scabbardfish | Sablefish |
| 🇬🇧United Kingdom | Black scabbardfish | Black cod |
| 🇫🇷France | Sabre noir | Morue charbonnière |
| 🇪🇸Spain | Sable negro | Bacalao negro |
| 🇲🇽Mexico | — | Bacalao negro |
| 🇵🇹Portugal | Peixe-espada-preto | — |
| 🇮🇹Italy | Pesce sciabola nero | — |
| 🇩🇪Germany | Schwarzer Degenfisch | Kohlenfisch |
$175.00–$495.00 · Free US shipping (except Hawaii) · Alaska Gold Seafood
The black cod that Japanese restaurants marinate in miso
- ·Line-caught Anoplopoma fimbria — not a cod
- ·The highest oil content of any Alaskan whitefish
- ·Skin-on boneless portions, vacuum-sealed
- ·5, 10 or 20 lb box
Alaskan Sablefish (Black Cod) Portions
Affiliate link — CarneAtlas may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Price checked 31 Aug 2026.
Browse every species in the atlas on the fish index, or identify one from a photo with Identify my cut.
