Are Fish and Chips worth it?

There area few chippies near us ,one is outstanding .It is about 12.50 for large cod and chips . This is plenty enough for 2 of us .Fish is very expensive no .something to do with Russia I think

A large fish here is ridiculous - two fillets - so we generally order a small fish with chips. I love a good chippy... not all chip shops are good, but the ones we know and ones by the seaside usually are worth it in my opinion.

The sauces and peas are in pots.

It’s DS’s favour takeaway, so we’ll generally get it for him when DH and I have curry. As a family we enjoy when we’re on holiday by the sea.

I'm amazed that the fact that quality and price vary so much is a surprise to you. The one near us is good. Not amazing, but good. The one near DS' old sports team is "travel an extra 10 miles just to go there" good. It's also about 10% cheaper. The one I take the kids to whenever we go down to the beach is somewhere between the two.

It's definitely best eaten in situ, but a good one can be brought home with minimal damage.

Even a quick heat up in the oven can perk up chips but a good batter will not go flabby quickly.

My recommendations:

Haddock not cod. One per person
Always choose a place that fries in beef dripping , never ever seed oil ( so Yorkshire, basically)
Large chips between two
Mushy peas.
Lashings of salt and vinegar
Dandelion and burdock ( it's not the best accompaniment but is traditional so Must Be Had)

Go away with your curry sauce. The work of the devil!

Still fried in beef dripping in Yorkshire.

There is something special about fish and chips at the seaside.

Damp fish and chips that are cold after the drive home not so much

The Yorkshire coast has the best chippes in the country, I find!

I'm not a lover of cod: find it completely tasteless. And mushy peas are the devil's work!

£13 quid each still isn't as expensive as a pizza.

We get chips, when we’ve got back late and are too tired to cook. We rarely have fish, partly because of the price and partly we are conscious of declining fish stocks. Getting old, we now share a portion of chips, and usually have a chicken and mushroom pie each. We heat up our own mushy peas - because the portions have got minute!

We don’t object to the prices, because we know chip shops have been hit by the cost of living price rises. Food is not usually THE biggest expense in restaurants - it’s more likely to be property costs such as rent and business rates, or wages. A rent for a small shop on our high street is £35,000+ Pa.

If I enjoyed the fish & chips, I would pay that. My problem is that these days I find it underwhelming.

In The Old Days, when I were a lass, chippies used beef dripping in the fryers. This reaches a higher temperature than vegetable oils, making for crisp batter and chips - lovely! I find the vegetable oil can't make them crispy, it seems to leave them flabby/soggy and frankly not as nice to eat.

We did have a chippie a few years back that did use dripping, but then it changed hands and the new owner went back to vegetable oil and we stopped using it.

The ones local to us all seem hit or miss; we'll try somewhere different and it will be great for a few weeks then really poor quality. DH likes a weekly chippy tea, but this week it tasted like the chips had been reheated a few times. I don't mind the price if the food is good.

I don't like them myself but DH sometimes has them and the price isn't too bad locally

Jesus where do you live?!

It's £8 at our chippy just for a cod or haddock! Chips are between £2 or £4 depending on size.

And no we're not in London. Nor in the south!

Yeah, it’s an occasional treat and our one is delicious.
£15/head still makes it the best value takeaway in my area.

Does depend, I would pay it for decent fish and chips. We have dire ones locally so drive 45 minutes to a different town for ours cos we know they will be fresh and delicious. We get them triple bagged and they know us now and always give us an extra sausage or fish cake cos they know we drive miles.

2 fish, 1 chips and mushy peas. £21 in Yorkshire. But they are lovely

I love fish and chips and yes they are ridiculously expensive. Where I lived in London there was never a decent one so I just went without. Thankfully I have a Scottish partner who's family live in Stirling so whenever we go there we take a day trip to Anstruther (if you're ever that way OP 😆) for the best fish and chips. Expensive? Yes! Worth it? Bloody hell, yes!
I live in Brighton now and there's a lot of horrible fish and chips here but thankfully I am close to a very good one. It has to be a treat though.

Sorry I love a chippy but that sounds awful! Why would you put onion rings and curry sauce in with fish and chips??? As well as peas?! And in a pizza box?!?!

As with all things - whether it's 'worth it' depends on how much the money means to you, how good the fish and chips are etc.

Our local chip shop is one that's regularly named in lists of the best chippies in the UK and it's really good. Two large cod/haddock and chips and two pots of mushy peas/curry sauce from there comes to £25 and for me, it's totally worth it. They also do really nice locally-made pies, free range chicken and usually a few specials on their menu as well.

2 large cod & chips £28. Hertfordshire.

Fish and chips have gone up in price more than other foods because they are uniquely exposed to several of the catastrophes happening in the world right now.

• Lots of the worlds whitefish catch is caught by the Russian fishing fleet and there are EU sanctions on some of it, so less fish getting into the UK and higher prices.

• Brexit. In the UK we mainly eat fish that our own fishing fleet doesn’t catch, we sell fish from British waters to Europe so the fishermen are screwed because of big tariffs on that. The fish we do eat (cod, haddock, salmon, prawns, tuna) is caught mainly elsewhere and now we’ve left the EU we pay big tariffs on that.

• Fish and chips are mainly fried in seed oils, who is the world largest producer of seed oils - Ukraine, who obviously aren’t sowing, harvesting and exporting much, so prices are soaring.

• Very cold and wet summer because of climate change which has buggered up the European potato harvests more than most other crops.

The big rise in labour and energy costs will be affecting every restaurant / cafe / business too but only fish and chip shops are also getting hammered by all the above factors.

So yes it will have gone up loads in price, a good bit more than other foods, and that’s why

That's cheap for fish and chips! But yes definitely worth it here as I don't deep fry at home

I only eat it about once a year or less. I ‘treated’ myself to some a few months ago and it was horrible. The chips were dry and anaemic and the batter was terrible (maybe a bit undercooked). First and last time I go to that particular chippy (cost £10 for one person).

Fish and chip supper here, chips and two fish - you'll get change out of £12.00.