The best fish and chips in the UK
Cornwall
West-coast boarders would do well to follow the lead of Claude Compton, rising star of the London food scene, who heads to Outlaw's Fish Kitchen in Port Isaac after a day's surfing off the north Cornwall coast. Housed in a charming white clapboard building, the one-Michelin-starred restaurant serves fishy fare that's a slice above the usual: cuttlefish fritters, rosemary and Cheddar-crumbed plaice and crab Scotch eggs.
Stein's Fish & Chips in Padstow always attracts long queues, partly because of the fish that's impeccably fried in beef dripping, partly because of the ferocious appetite you work up on the trudge along the delightful Camel Trail, and partly because of owner Rick, Padstow's capo di tutti capi.
Suffolk
For all its beach-hut cutesiness and artisanal bakeries, there's a hardscrabble quality to the Suffolk shore. The names of the local flora are instructive: frog-bit, bog pimpernel, lousewort. None sound in need of much mollycoddling, which is just as well when a stiff wind comes in off the water. Not that it impacts on the beauty of a coast where every walk is a prelude to a pint. The Adnams brewery is a major player in nearby towns and villages, where its output is added to the batter to make top-notch fish and chips. Walberswick's The Anchor and Southwold's The Lord Nelson are fine joints, but the pick is The Ship At Dunwich, a little pub with rooms that dishes up huge portions of fried fish - cod, haddock or plaice - with some of the finest chips in the land. Washed down with a glass of Adnams Southwold Bitter, this comes close to heaven.
London
Be it barbers or bike shops, coffee houses or chicken shacks, you can hardly shake a crabstick in London these days without hitting a reclaimed light fitting, and the capital's latest chippies are similarly on trend. At the smart-looking Kerbisher & Malt those in search of a lighter option might go for a sustainable pollock in matzo meal with a crunchy fennel and dill salad. Then again, they might can the calorie-counting and order the fish bites with a portion of double-fried chips.
And it's not only the fresh wave of chippies that are serving up fried fish to London's discerning diners. Down a side street in Covent Garden, old-school J Sheekey continues to dish up sensational portions of fried haddock to A-list thesps.
See more suggestions with our edit of the best fish and chips in London
Norfolk
Up on the North Norfolk coast, poor old Burnham Market does well to endure all those 'Chelsea-on-Sea' jibes, but a walk down the pretty high street suggests it's a little self-inflicted, what with the village's all-round Farrow & Ballsiness. Not that you'd complain while feasting on an assiette of local seafood - Brancaster oysters, dressed Cromer crab, salmon caught and smoked by Norfolk fisherman Simon Letzer - at boutique hotel The Hoste.
It's less polished a 10-minute drive away at Wells-next-the-Sea, home to French's Fish & Chips, where they've been frying for more than 90 years. They don't do wine pairings here, so take it as read that haddock and cod go just as well with a can of Fanta. Proper fish and chips demand to be eaten with your fingers, the batter crisp to the touch, the chips slippery with vinegar. At French's the peas may be tinned and the tartare by Heinz, but the fish is gorgeous, and the chips are the proper kind - the sort that, with enough vinegar, coalesce into one at the bottom of your bag. Tucking in, fingers slicked with grease, an amusement arcade tempting me with its penny pusher, I meditate on the glory of English seaside towns in all their sea-salty loveliness.http://www.frenchs.co.uk/
Glasgow
Glasgow's love affair with the deep-fat fryer is the stuff of legend, and Isaac McHale, the man behind the Michelin-starred Clove Club in London, has fond memories of his hometown's scran: 'When I think of the fish and chips of my childhood I think of the Philadelphia on Great Western Road. The batter is crunchy, they do a decent selection of fish, and the fritters are great.' Complementing the old-school fryers is a new breed of chippies who are self-aware enough to trade on the city's culinary reputation. The elegant Café Gandolfi's Fish To Go may serve the posh stuff, like langoustine and lobster, but it keeps a wee cheeky eye on its roots with fish-finger rolls and haggis suppers.
[RelatedContent##default.47636##Display¬Normal##Read more##KeepInline]
Yorkshire
Frankie's inherited the National Fish and Chip Award's crown from Quayside in 2015, one of the many fish-and-chip shops in Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast. The area around the quay is to mushy peas what Savile Row is to suits, and if there is a spiritual home of fish and chips, Whitby surely is it.
Wales
The glorious Gower Peninsula that juts out west of Swansea has one of the Britain's best surf spots at Llangennith. With its reliable swell and beach breaks, it's just the place to work up an appetite for fish in a local Gower beer batter, as served up at the nearby Kings Head Inn.
West Dorsethttps://www.hixrestaurants.co.uk/restaurant/hix-oyster-fish-house/
In terms of big names by the beach, Stein's Fish & Chips is matched only by the Hix Oyster & Fish House in Lyme Regis. Defeated fossil-hunters should retire to Mark Hix's glass-fronted, bird's nest of a restaurant for fine views of the Jurassic Coast, and the nostalgic pleasure of Webster's fish fingers with chips and mushy peas.
[RelatedContent##default.41947##Display¬Normal##Read more##KeepInline]
Scottish Isles
Not everyone needs wising up to the merits of our fryers. The National Fish & Chip Awards have been celebrating the best of British since 1988. In 2015 the first prize went to Frankie's in Brae on Shetland, the UK's most northerly chippy. It's a worthy winner with its peerless haddock and local MSC-certified shellfish (you're even told which boat it came off).
Most picturesque of all the newcomers taking to the roads is the Fishermen's Pier van in the absurdly pretty town of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull - even Prince Charles has sampled its scallops.
This feature was first published in Condé Nast Traveller August 2015.
[RelatedContent##default.48323##Display¬Normal##Have you seen…?##KeepInline]
[RelatedContent##default.48108##Display¬Normal####KeepInline]
[RelatedContent##default.48361##Display¬Normal####KeepInline]
Charlotte GaleQuayside, Whitby
Jason LoweHix Oyster and Fish House, Lyme Regis