British cuisine might be the big joke of the world, but there are three dishes we know that convince all naysayers: Sunday roast, a full English breakfast and fish ‘n’ chips. Originating from Spanish and Portuguese Jewish immigrants, fish ‘n’ chips is beloved by all of Britain reaching its peak in popularity in the early 20th century. (It was one of the few foods in the UK not subject to rationing during the wars.) And you’ll find a chippy on most high streets.
But there’s one plaice better than anywhere in the UK to enjoy the humble fish ‘n’ chips, apparently. Taking a seed list of some of the most populated cities, as well as some of the most popular staycation destination spots in the UK, Betway recently set out to discover which cities reign as the best spots to enjoy a classic fish ‘n’ chips. Haddock look at that: Bristol is the ‘Chippy Capital’ of the UK.
Situated not too far from the coast, Bristol can enjoy some of the freshest fish compared to the many fish and chip eateries in other cities. Looking at the city’s highest-rated fish and chip shop, Mario’s Fish Bar in the east of Bristol, the report found that the takeaway boasts a reasonable menu with 83 options in total. The fifth-largest menu in the findings. Additionally, the takeaway also caters well to vegetarian and vegan customers, with 29 options – the sixth highest in the report.
To work out the UK’s Chippy Captial, Betway picked the chippy in each location with the highest rating and highest number of reviews. It then ranked each destination using the following factors:
- Number of fish ‘n’ chip shops
- Number of menu options and vegetarian/vegan options at the highest-rated takeaway
- Number of Google reviews/ratings of the highest-rated takeaway
- Distance from the highest-rated takeaway to the nearest beach
- Number of IG hashtags for fish and chips in each location
- Number of TikTok Views for fish and chips in each town/city
- UK monthly searches for fish and chips in each location.
The team then used a normalised ranking function to score each data point out of 10, which gave each location an overall score out of 80. Bristol was crowned the Chippy Capital scoring 60/80. Nottingham followed close behind as the second-best city for its fish and chips, with a score of 59.8/80. While London took third place with an overall score of 58.3/80, followed by Edinburgh in fourth with an overall score of 55.6/80.
To see the full research from Betway head here.