Upton Fish and Chip Shop, Upton, Lincolnshire

 

Whilst we were being served at Upton's we overheard one of the staff say they’d had an email from a customer that was due to fly to the nearby airfield at Sturgate and wanted nine fish and eleven portion of chips. Yes, people travel from afar to this chippy.

We had travelled over seventy miles ourselves to get here and joined a queue. A queue with a waiting time of twenty minutes that added to the excitement and anticipation of seeing the coal-fired frying range and tasting the fish and chips cooked in beef dripping.

This well-renowned fish and chip shop opened in 1948. They keep their standards high by having a relatively small and simple menu of cod, haddock, sausage, peas and curry sauce, and only open twice a week: Friday evenings and Saturday lunchtimes. The chippy appears to be popular with bikers as well as aviators, judging by the motorbikes we saw parked up nearby when we visited.

The smell of the smoke coming out of the chimney gave us a nostalgic feeling and we noticed that little black specks of smut peppered our skin as we got nearer to the door of the shop.

Service was friendly and swift, but we had time to admire the Art Deco beauty of the frying range and its bucket of coal sitting patiently, waiting to re-stoke the fire.

Once we were served we found a nearby bench to sit and eat.

One Chip Fiend had haddock and curry sauce, the other had cod and mushy peas. We went for a regular fish portion size, but the shop also fry a jumbo haddock for a couple of quid more.

The chips were new potatoes. They were soft and delicate as these type of chips usually are, and they came with a scattering of batter scraps which enhanced their flavour.

Both the cod and the haddock were utterly delicious. Pure white, moist and flaky, with an exceedingly tasty batter.

The mushy peas were divine. Home soaked, pale, and creamy. 

The curry sauce was a real surprise. It was homemade and very spicy. It was mixed thick, and clung nicely to the chips. Definitely the best homemade curry sauce from a chippy that we have tasted. 

We scraped every last morsel from our trays... my goodness it would have been so tempting to re-join the queue for another twenty-minute wait!!

Ratings out of 5:

Cod: 5

Haddock: 5

Chips: 4

Mushy peas: 5

Curry sauce: 5

Shop / service: 5

Bonus: scraps, the anticipation of queueing and watching the smoking chimney, the beauty of the coal-fired range!

Over all: 5