The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / Fish and chips

Fish and chips

by 81 Comments

I love fish and chips. This New Yorker article is mouth-watering.

My current favourite place in Sydney is just down the road from where I do my weekly radio show (www.eastsidefm.org/onesizefitsall seeing you asked).

It’s called Fish Butchery and is run by a chef whose schtick is that he uses every part of the fish. But apart from that Blumenthal-like high end gastronomy, they do great battered f&c. If you’re ever in Sydney go there.

When I was a kid my family would regularly go to a suburb of Wellington NZ called Island Bay and get fish and chips for lunch. We’d drive round the bay and park in a little off road spot and solemnly eat our f&c, which at the time were wrapped in newspaper. My Mum always remarked how she always found interesting things to read she’d missed. I used to like reading the classified ads. Mum and Dad would have a can of beer. afterwards we’d drive home via the Art Gallery, which at the time my sister and I hated, but I now remember fondly.

So let’s have you fish and chips submissions. Two things

1. The best fish and chips in your part of the world
2. Your best fish and chips memories

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/the-glorious-fish-and-chips-at-dame?utm_campaign=falcon&mbid=social_twitter&utm_social-type=owned&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=tny

0

Comments

  1. I honestly have an issue with the flabby chips and shrapnel batter that so many chipshops excel in, to the extent I far prefer eat in at a decent pub with a decent kitchen. (Pub lunches, eh, remember them!) But the Swan chippy in Burntwood does massive portions of proper crispy chips and steaming fresh fish, haddock for me, in a lovely light batter.
    My memory is of the white coating of lard that dried on your lips after a pre 21st century Scottish fish supper.

  4. In Brisbane it’s got to be Fish Kitchen in Dutton Park. Chips aren’t the best I’ve ever had, tbh, but they’re more than adequate. But the fish…fresh as a really fresh fishy thing with delicious batter, not frozen and out of a cardboard box like so many places round here. Battered snapper and chips for me.

    Best f&c overall is probably Rick Stein’s in Padstow, eaten out of the box on the harbour wall. Fried in lard, so a heart attack in a box.

    Best chips I’ve ever had, and I can no longer remember what made them so great, were from a Chinese chippy somewhere in the badlands of Streatham. Monosodium glutamate maybe.

    F&C memories: I was in a chippy in Southend, Friday night ritual on the way home from Scouts, when I first heard that JFK had been shot.

    And I walked into a chippy in Oxford once and asked for cod and chips. Reasonable request in such a place, you might think, but the staff collapsed in hysterical laughter, then refused to tell me what was so funny. Only thing I can think of is that they were taking bets on what the next customer would want. Do I look like a cod and chips sort of chap? Who knows?

  6. The best fish and chop shop I have been to is Bedders in Yardley, Birmingham.
    They have a small seating area at the back of the shop that holds maybe a dozen people. Get there at 12 noon and you can get a seat – any time after that its a bit of a free for all – it is about £ 5.50 for the best fish, chips and mushy peas you can hope to find anywhere. For the £ 5.50 they throw in a slice of bread and butter and a cup of tea.
    It is a Birmingham institution and so good it doesn’t have to open in the evenings.

    I love Fish and Chips but if I go to a chippy and the batter appears to have darkened in colour I go for a pie instead. The batter must be golden and not thick – smooth against the flesh of the fish.

  7. Toronto has quite a few old British style basic Fish and Chip places. Ottawa not so much, but I get my fix from a nearby Scottish pub, The Glen in Stittsville, they are open for pickup 🙂 They also have the right sort of curry sauce that is absolutely necessary.

    Fish and chip memories, simply Solari’s in Ebbw Vale (most valleys places are run by Italian immigrants). Every Saturday lunchtime. You always had to wait for chips.

  8. Ahh, one more day till our semi-regular Friday night fish and chips. Pure comfort food, especially in these times, and I can’t wait quite frankly. Vinegar on first, then the salt will stick better. Is it just me that does that? Ketchup, obviously. Couple of pickled onions. Bit of curry sauce, but only for dipping mind. Poured on the chips it is just weird!

  9. @dai have been to a fair few of the Toronto ones including a very good one in Brampton the last time I was over. Problem I find with the Canadian ones is that often the fish is not a singular piece but rather a couple of large goujons. Also not often Malt vinegar but white vinegar which is not the same.

  10. Seeing as condiments has come up, I feel I should give a shout out for the salt & sauce combination you get in Edinburgh chippies. Not for the purists, but man it’s good.

    The sauce of course is prepared according to a closely guarded recipe.*

    *HP Sauce plus water

    • We have something in Hull called Chip Spice. It’s basically salt and paprika. It’s okay, but bloody hell people don’t half make a big deal about it.

      Again, not on my fish unless you want a small wooden fork embedded in your face. Peace and love…

  11. No1, Cromer. Posh restaurant upstairs, best F&C in the world downstairs. Damn this pandemic!!

    Memories – Ashvale Chipper, Aberdeen. 10.30 after a good few pints of heavy. Me and my mate from London. I order F&C with a side order of black pudding. My mate says “Never seen a mince pie on offer in a chippie before, go on then”. Guy behind the counter takes mince pie out of the keep-warm cabinet and flings it into the boiling fat. A few minutes later the pie is retrieved from the furiously frothing lard. It is then tipped outside down to let the excess oil pour out through the hole on top. “Don’t feel so good” says mate and scarpers off into the night.

      • Choicest cuts of mutton I believe! *looks sideways at camera*

        We Scots of course have a long history of innovation in the area of deep frying. Well before we became world famous for putting mars bars and maltesers in batter, we were pushing the envelope with other foodstuffs. In Edinburgh in the 80s you could have a deep-fried macaroni cheese supper.

      • Love ’em, first thing I ever buy at Waverley Station. And a proper scots pie has the paper thin watercrust pastry. With enough “wall” around the lid to put in a large portion of baked beans.
        But I like the idea of a deep fried Mr Kipling mince pie. The idea, mind, not to eat one.
        When I spent 10 weeks in week I’d have a haggis supper, a black pudding supper and a white pudding supper, altogether, but minus the chips. Just the thing for after a night watching the local bands in MacKays.I thought I was being healthy.

  12. Don’t eat fish and no beef dripping for the chips. Definitely no ketchup on anything,vile muck.
    Quite like a scallop a large slice of potato in batter, basically a fish cake without the fish.
    Lemon juice instead of non-brewed condiment or vinegar.
    Oh and bits.
    Quite like Toffs in Muswell Hill as it used to be frequented by Vivian Stanshall.

  14. The Neptune. A fish and chip ‘restaurant’ in Seahouses in Northumberland. Wonderful. Formica tables and plastic chairs and the windows open to the salty sea bluster just a few yards away. Best enjoyed on a summer weekend with the little town heaving with families.

    There’s a decent fish and chip shop in Dartmouth. You can sit on the harbour front and look towards Kingswear over the river in the twilight and watch the pastel painted houses change colour. While eating chips. Nice.

    • Is The Neptune the one that has the sign in the window about the Hairy Bikers calling it the “best fish and chip restaurant in the country” or suchlike? If it’s that one then I have eaten in there and it is indeed quite superb.

      • I believe so. The last time I was there was at least 5 years ago on a sunny Saturday lunchtime and it was absolutely just right.

        We wolfed it all down, bought some Seahouses rock from the Tat Shop next door and went down to the harbour to watch the trawlers bobbing about. With salt and vinegar tastes still lingering.

          • Lovely area true, but Seahouses? Really? It’s like a ghastly little piece of Blackpool, dumped down in the middle of a site of scenic beauty. I’d happily move anywhere on that coast between Newbiggin and Berwick except Seahouses. And Amble.
            (I think I may be sounding a tad middle class here…..)

  15. The Golden Hind in Marylebone used to be wonderful; large portions and amazingly cheap for that part of London. It was run by Cypriots and food/atmosphere was just right It has since been tarted up and doesn’t look to be the same. No doubt the de Walden estate are pleased.

    The best fish and chips I’ve ever had was in Leeds, it was a small chipper at the end of a terraced street just before the motorway bridge en route to Elland Road. We’re talking pennies and no need to eat for the rest of the day.

    • The Golden Hind. That’s the one I’m referring to below, although I never found it to be cheap. I worked in an office on Welbeck Street with a lad from Huddersfield and a lad from Bradford, so lunch from there was an occasional treat

  16. I really have to be very hungry indeed to want to eat fish and chips outside Yorkshire, as 8 or 9 times out of 10 I’m disappointed. There used to be a decent chippy near the away end in Southend, there’s a nice, but very pricy, fish and chip restaurant off Marylebone High Street, and I’ll make an exception for Grimsby and Cleethorpes. But if I had a pound for every chip shop owner around the country that’s told me it’s impossible to deep fry a fish without leaving the skin on I’d be able to afford a Paul McCartney boxed set.

    My favourite chippy that I use regularly is Princes in Barnsley, but my favourites are either the one on the pier in Cleethorpes or the Magpie in Whitby.

    And my best fish and chip memory is being in St Ives with my ex, being really hungry and her telling me there’s a chippy over the road. I don’t think she’d been up to Yorkshire with me at that point, so I explained my reluctance to eat fish and chips outside GOC, but as we walked past they smelled really nice, so I popped my head in and the fish looked perfect, crispy batter, no skin. So I decided to get some. The missus started telling me not to be so cocky and it’s not just Yorkshire that does nice fish and chips, when the owner came out of the back and asked the lass behind the counter, in the broadest Barnsley accent, “does tha need any more chips chucking in love?” I tried my best not to give the missus a smug look…

    My worst fish and chip memory is going to the chippy across from the hospital, just after I’d moved to Liverpool as a 19 year old, and then looking down at what they’d served me. This feeling was repeated later that same day when I ordered a pint of bitter in the local pub.

    I shall now remove my ‘Professional Yorkshireman’ flat cap…

    • Across the border in Carnforth, Lancs was “Freddie Scott’s Chippy”, only went there as a kid, but I remember it being very good. Likewise, one in Heysham where you could take them outside and look at the sea (and the local power plant) while eating from a bench in between bouts of pouring rain.

      • I used to think it was no longer possible to eat fish and chips by the sea, because of all the armed gangs of seagulls, but I suppose they leave you alone now that there’s all the fish their beaks can carry, rotting on the dock.

  17. Fish & chips is very popular in NZ and hard to beat on a summer evening at the beach. When the kids were small we did it most summer Sunday evenings and that is now a treasured memory.

    I was last in England 4 years ago and I was reminded of the way things are done there. You line up and when you eventually get to the front, you give your order.

    Over here, at a busy chippie, you give your order – they say “10 minutes” and then you come back 20 minutes later (enough time for a brief beer perhaps, over the road). And then you come back and pick it up. You can do this by phone too and then pop down there in about 20 minutes without queuing.

    These aren’t deserted places, these are very busy – the logistics work better over here I think.

  18. When I lived in London it was The Seashell in Lisson Grove. Was nowhere near as posh then as it looks now.

    In Sydney, it’s probably sitting on the Wharf at Watson’s Bay eating F&S from Doyles. The takeaway, not the fancy overpriced restaurant where all the bootiful people hang out.

    • In blubbery blueberry Burberry….

      I recently found out, perhaps on here, that Stump were quite cross at not having “made it” in a Wham!/Thompson twins etc sense, which is extraordinary coming from what was essentially a poor man’s Half Man Half Biscuit (if that’s possible)

      • That’s actually really funny to hear…bless them but they were never going to become huge! Saw them live a few times and this wasn’t going to happen, even though they were fun.

    • I suspect it perpetuates the hope that it will be fresher than in, say Brum, despite the story perpetuated in Brum to the contrary, especially at the rather good fish market in the Bullring.

    • I live half a mile from the sea but haven’t found a decent chippy here. Having said that, I avoid deep fried food these days as it tends to upset my stomach a bit. I can manage the chips but battered fish, not so much.
      My wife lived in Leeds in the mid 80s and remembers a good chippy in or near Headingley which was quite basic. Long gone I believe as we tried to find it about 18 months ago.

    • Yes, you have to be outside looking at it though. Long journey to do that from my part of Canada, but Lake Ontario will do (e.g. at Cobourg en route to Toronto).

  24. My love of fish and chips dates back to pre-school childhood. My mum would drag me and my brother round town doing the food shop every Friday. A quick bus ride to my nan’s for tea. We took the plates round to the chip shop where they knew everybody and what they wanted even before we asked. When I was a bit bigger, I’d even go myself, entrusted with the cash to pay, and the ability to carry the plates home wrapped in newspaper. Lashings of vinegar and plenty of salt. As time went by, the counter I used to be unable to see over, was soon one I could lean on.

    Not that long ago, in London, I ordered my usual, a split and fish. They looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. A ‘split’ = chips and mushy peas. I’ve since learnt that it’s called a ‘mixture’ in Widnes, a stone’s throw from St. Helens where I was brought up.

    I have to be careful with my diet these days but I’m a sucker for fish and chips, the only meal I still add salt to.

    Having read the link, Mousey, I’m inspired to try and cook my own!

  25. The Ansthruther Fish Bar is as good as the hype. I haven’t tasted fish that tastes so much of the sea as I have there.

    I had fish and chips at The Little Fish and Chip Shop in Southwold on a much needed week away in September and they were also great.

    Favourite chippy memory was when returning home from the League Cup Final replay at Old Trafford in 1978. Forest had beaten Liverpool 1-0 thanks to a John Robertson (who else) penalty and bring Forest their first trophy under Cloughie and Peter Taylor. I have my ticket somewhere.

    We started the journey home through the Peak District, all feeling a bit peckish, only to find a massive queue of Forest fans outside every chip shop we passed. It was probably Buxton or Bakewell before we got anything to eat.

    What an evening that was.

  26. OK, thinking this thread needs a hamper, what fish is the fish that should be fish and chips? Boring old cod, reliable haddock, niche plaice or some of the fancy pants fish at Steins chippy? Who remembers rock salmon? Aka dogfish, that favourite of biology practical sessions. Or even wartime staple, snook, still on the menu at V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, and not so bad.

    • Only had rock salmon once in my life – does it always smell of ammonia or was I just unlucky?

      We have nothing but fancy pants fish in Oz – barramundi, snapper, flathead, hoki (aka Blue Grenadier), Flake (aka Gummy Shark…), grunter…snapper or flathead for me.

  28. Most unlikely F&C I ever had was about a hundred yards up the road, in a Thai-run food place. River fish, moist, flaky, white meat, in a pleasingly crisp batter. The chips are variable, never as good as they should be, but who’s complaining? When my wife and I visited my Dad in the UK a few years back, we had some local F&C. Wildly expensive, and as soggy and pallid as the English Rose who served us. We looked at each other. “Better at home, isn’t it?”

Leave a Reply