Rockfish and Striped bass are different fish, but they're close enough in the kitchen to stand in for one another.
Sebastidae
Rockfish
Rockfish is the market name for roughly seventy species of the genus Sebastes, the dominant nearshore catch of the US Pacific coast from California to Alaska. Colors range from the bright orange-red of yelloweye and canary rockfish to the mottled browns and blacks of gopher and blue rockfish, but all share the same kitchen behavior: lean, white, medium-firm flesh in small flaky sheets, mild enough to take almost any treatment. It is the default fish-taco and fish-and-chips fish of the West Coast, and it holds together in a stew better than cod. Buyers should know two things. First, Pacific rockfish is very often sold in the United States as "Pacific red snapper" or "Pacific snapper" — it is not a snapper, and the substitution is restricted under California law. Second, "rockfish" means something else entirely in the Chesapeake Bay and Mid-Atlantic, where it is the local name for striped bass, an unrelated fish. Across the Atlantic the same genus is a mainstay under different names: Rotbarsch is one of Germany's most familiar frozen fillets, cantarilho is standard in Portugal, and the deep-water Sebastes norvegicus is sold in Britain as redfish or ocean perch.
Full guide →Moronidae
Striped bass
Striped bass is the great fish of the US Atlantic seaboard — anadromous, running from the ocean into the Chesapeake and Hudson to spawn — and throughout Maryland and Virginia it is called simply rockfish, or rock. That local name is the source of a persistent mix-up: it is not the Pacific rockfish of the genus Sebastes, which is an unrelated fish from the opposite coast. The flesh is white, firm and large-flaked, richer and more assertive than cod, and it is at its best cooked whole, roasted on the bone, or seared skin-on so the skin crisps. Nearly all striped bass in the market is farmed hybrid bass, a cross with white bass, sold at plate size; wild striped bass is tightly regulated and largely a sport fishery. It belongs to Moronidae, which makes it a close relative — but not the equivalent — of the European sea bass sold as lubina, loup de mer or branzino. Spanish speakers looking for this fish want lubina rayada, and should be aware that an unqualified "lubina" in Spain means the European fish instead.
Full guide →These share a market name and nothing else. "Rockfish" means Pacific Sebastes on the West Coast and striped bass in the Chesapeake — one is a small-flaked lean fish from cold Pacific reefs, the other a large-flaked anadromous Atlantic fish. Read the coast, not the label.
| Country | Rockfish | Striped bass |
|---|
| 🇺🇸United States | Rockfish | Striped bass |
| 🇬🇧United Kingdom | Redfish | Striped bass |
| 🇫🇷France | Sébaste | Bar rayé |
| 🇪🇸Spain | Gallineta | Lubina rayada |
| 🇲🇽Mexico | — | Lubina rayada |
| 🇵🇹Portugal | Cantarilho | — |
| 🇮🇹Italy | Scorfano di Norvegia | Spigola striata |
| 🇩🇪Germany | Rotbarsch | Streifenbarsch |
Browse every species in the atlas on the fish index, or identify one from a photo with Identify my cut.