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uh
hey guys it's june and it's harry and
today we're going around
five london's best fish and chip shops
to find the best fish and chips in
london
so what makes great fish and chips we're
going to be judging ours on five
criteria
the fish itself we want flaky batter we
want crispy batter that snaps when you
bite into it
and the fish we want to be really flaky
inside
and have just really nice flavor the
chips we want nice and crispy on the
outside
fluffy on the inside and well seasoned
with salt and vinegar
and then also we're going to look at
price as well are there any tourist trap
spots that are going to rip you off
so it's 7 30 in the morning and we are
starting our journey at
billings gate market this place is a
proper old east end institution
it's the biggest fish market in the uk
so
lots of things to check out inside
including the billingscape cafe where we
start our journey
so i don't know about youtube but i'm
ready to eat some fish and chips yes
let's go
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i've been working down the fish market
since 97
we caught fish we do breakfast we
basically cater for the market it's a
tradition a lot of people come down here
to get fresh fish didn't they yeah
a lot of people come here as well to
have it where the poachers had it and
then coach things
thank you
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do visually talk to me about your first
impressions of this fish
well this is literally the biggest plate
of fish and chips i think i've ever had
um it's coming almost just like this
like wonderful like circular display
uh which i'm absolutely loving um
there's a lot of salad and red onion
some coleslaw on the plate and the like
overbearing thing on this plate though
is like this huge huge water chips here
so the fish a little bit unusual in a
couple of ways firstly it's sea bass
which is not the average fish that tends
to get served in london's fish and chip
shops
you're usually looking at more sort of
cod or like a flaky fish like that also
they don't batter the fish here
which i'm actually slightly disappointed
in because they just dredge it in flour
and then fry it
and you don't get quite the same level
of crisp with just a flour dredge as
opposed to batter
but you know i'm willing to be convinced
and hopefully the fish inside is going
to taste really good
it's a really good chip it's a kitchen
it's a good chip
it's not greasy it's just you can like
basically taste the oil rather than like
an overwhelmed
potato taste and it's nice it's really
light i feel like getting through that
would be quite
easy very easy particularly given how
wide the surface area is on these
flatter chips they have actually got the
inside quite nice and fluffy which is
good and that's one of our criteria that
we're looking for
again like just on paper and
structurally i'm still not sure about
the
if it's a fish and chip chop chip but it
tastes good it's okay i think we need to
try the fish
we do need to try this
the taste of the actual fish inside of
what's extremely like light flowery
butter is
unbelievably good that's really good
fish
it's flaky which is again one of our
criteria that we're looking for
just kind of almost like falls apart and
melts in your mouth
really well seasoned this is some it's
just
really lovely quality fish i think you
can just taste the freshness like it
hasn't traveled you know from miles
across
london it's just come like straight here
in the morning
probably right here like four o'clock in
the morning and then we're eating it at
like seven eight o'clock so this
cost ten pounds which is roughly about
thirteen dollars i feel like this is a
good
filling dish breakfast which is not a
sentence that i've said before
but good value for money it's cheap as
chips
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next we travel to the golden chippy in
south east london which is the number
one ranked fish and chip shop on
tripadvisor
we're going to check it out and see if
it lives up to its reviews
my name is chris i'm from cyprus
i came here when i was 17 years old
i was hoping to become a surgeon of the
humans i ended up being surgeon of the
fish
golden chippy have been open for 15
years i started it from scratch
but these hens been playing with fish
for 42 years now
with the secret recipe of the butter
cooked at the right temperature sitting
there for one or two minutes to drain
properly
gives it that fantastic crispy finish
which is very light butter very tasty
fish and
not greasy at all
so we've got this absolutely massive
plate of cod and chips here
with a nice load of mushy peas at the
side and some salad
so just looking at this i am super
excited to tuck in
the batter is like visibly crispy and
the chips as well these are like proper
chip chop chips
we've got that kind of that thickness on
all sides nice and golden brown on the
outside
i'm hoping nice and light and fluffy on
the inside but we're gonna find out
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okay cheers
this is like so unbelievably smooth and
just like a really really nice sort of
like
fish blow texture this is absolutely
melting my mouth
this is worthy of the first oh my god of
the day no oh you stole my puns
oh had it you've got some of your own
puns harry
the batter is extremely crispy um it's
living up to all
it lives up to how it looks and you
really get that nice texture of
the contrast of textures between the
crisp of the batter and the flaky
soft melting of my fish is really really
good
so we saw them preparing these chips
from scratch out the back which is great
because you know they're not just buying
in a frozen thing this is like a freshly
made
freshly peeled potato
taste potato which is always good for
chippy chips
like normally with chippy chips it might
be a little bit too greasy but this is
just like
the taste of the potato inside it's
obviously coming through also they
frightened
just the same oil as the fish so i'm
getting like almost a little fishy taste
from it
but the whole
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next we head up to our third stop hook
in north london
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we wanted to do something different to
the traditional fish and chips dish
by adding tempura and panko and
flavoring them
and doing a more new school take
we predominantly use tempura batter
because it allows us to be
consistently creative and infuse
different flavors with our fresh fish
so we are bringing a new school kind of
vibe to fish and chips
something that's cool and quite exciting
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so we are at our third location this is
hook in camden
and we've just been given some garlic
truffle mayo
some seaweed salted chips nice little
watch of lemon
and this lovely piece of sea bream with
basil and lemon tempura
it smells amazing that's just arrived at
our table
the uh the chips are interesting they're
kind of like a cross between chips and
potato wedges because they're really
thin
but that they've still got the skin on
the fries not the sort of conventional
fish and chip shop fry
but i'm hoping that this garlic mower is
going to kick it up again
it's really um it's really really really
lemony like you can really taste the
lemon coming through
um and the the tempura is like extremely
extremely thin
it's very like light crisp to it but i
think that there's such moisture in the
fish
that like that's really really the
overwhelming texture that comes through
the fish is like like butter it really
kind of just dissolves in your mouth
almost
and has like quite a lot of richness to
it i think the brim in comparison to the
maybe the cod that we've had earlier the
taste of the fish is really
really good
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oh wow yeah yeah i kind of don't miss
tartar sauce now i think this is a
really
really lovely like buttery taste to go
with the buttery texture of the fish
i think that's the key it's so buttery
it's really rich it's almost like a
garlic butter
yeah it's the garlic butter with a
really really buttery fish and then
um then these are actually lighter than
they look like do they look like it's
quite like a thick like texture to that
but
it's not i think that
like for the quality of the texture and
like the size proportion like this seems
very very reasonable
also we're in a slightly more like
market like nice restaurant rather than
being somewhere that you know can
effectively like wrap your chips up in a
piece of newspaper and casually give it
to you like
this is more of a fine dining experience
which i'd expect to pay a little bit
more for
and also this whole sustainability
approach which they've taken
is really great and obviously you end up
paying a little bit more for that
but worthwhile because the end product
is really good
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now we move on to our next stop which is
poppies in central london
now poppy's has three locations in
central london it's got a little bit of
a reputation for being touristy but it's
not all bad
it's actually got quite a nice history
behind it it was started in 1952
by pops who started as a teenager
wrapping up fish and chips in copies of
newspaper
so like feeling a little bit of a
traditional vibe here um but obviously
because it is a chain will that affect
the quality
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so this is a regular size uh cod at
poppies obviously we've got an
absolutely a massive amount of chips
and quite like a achievable size cod i
feel
yeah i mean we're reaching the point in
the day where i'm already getting quite
full
so it's nice to see that the cod isn't
too ridiculous but it's just like
quite light like quite kind of skimpy
chips i would say like they're chippy
chips but they don't look like kind of
overly golden like overly brown um and
the we were a little bit confused
whether this was
batted or credited cod because it's like
it's such a like
light and actually quite like bumpy
textures of the batter that i mean
it's battle cod but i guess we'll find
out what it's going to taste like
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oh that's crunchy batter
i would probably say this is the fish
probably has the least taste of any ones
that we've tried today
yeah i know that all of their fish comes
fresh each day from billy state market
so this is definitely like the same sort
of supply fish that we've seen before
um it's it's as light as well
um there's just not as much of a
fishiness to it
i would say yeah just not a lot of
flavor game coming through from there
not in an unpleasant way you know the
batter is good it lets the batter shine
a little bit
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yeah let's give these chips a try
yeah these very much fit my idea of like
a classic chippy chip you do get
maybe a little bit underdone compared to
other ones we've had today you don't get
quite as much crunch on the outside
but the inside you really do get a
lovely potato fried potato flavor
and it's nice and fluffy as well yeah
very very fluffy and then in parts you
can see a little bit of skin on
i kind of like that roughness of them
like that's a classic chippy chip you're
looking for a little bit of skin
a little tiny bit of crunch but mostly
it's all about the quality of the potato
inside
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we move on to our final stop fine dining
seafood restaurant bodyguard
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so what you're looking at now is bonnie
goals take on classic fish and chips
so what we have is a beer battered
haddock we have chips which are cooked
in beef dripping
and we have a homemade tartar sauce and
mushy peas as well
it looks incredible do what are your
thoughts well it almost just looks like
two good teeth
it's just like a work of art on a plate
it's just i don't even know how they get
the fish to stand up like that in the
batter
um very very mesmerizing i'm actually
looking forward to trying this
look at that snap
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really buttery really melt-and-mouth
texture on the inside
but um but just the batter is
just i could just eat that the batter
just
have a snack pocket of that batter and
just snack on it all day long
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you know it's good when the chip also
has that crunch down
a little bit that was really fluffy on
the inside
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yeah i think that gives it more of like
a like say a roast potato vibe that
you'd expect with your roast dinner
everything on this plate is like encased
in something wonderful
so like the fish is encased in this
amazing batter the potatoes are encased
in this
really great crispiness it's almost like
little
joy's head inside choice
so here we are we've had our five fish
and chips we've had some time to think
about what our favorite was
and now we're outside tower bridge in
london and we're ready to give you our
answer
it's time to reveal our favorite should
we go on three on three
okay one two three
body goals golden chippy oh we just
agreed
yeah we can't actually decide on one
together then um
why did you pick golden chippy for me
gold and chippy took the crown
because it was just like the
quintessential chip shop experience
in terms of the food where you get that
flaky fish
crispy batter chunky chips and for me
yeah it was just classic fish and chips
okay i see a point i picked bonnie gold
because the quality and standard of the
food that we saw that day
was like so much better than everything
else that we tasted
i just thought the batter was perfect
and the size of those chips like
who couldn't love them so as hard as
this is going to be
we weren't here to pick the best two we
were here to pick the best fish and
chips in london
can i convince you to come over to the
side of golden chippy
okay i can be convinced to go to golden
chippy
only because i think that as a fish and
chips
proper english fish and chips experience
it it gives you that
in a way that fine dining at bonnie gold
doesn't so i think
in terms of like all-round food plus the
proper
authentic experience okay okay i'm gonna
go for golden chippy i can move over to
golden chippy
but bonnie goal was delicious
you