How to eat fish and chips the proper British way
Stinging white vinegar in a soaked, old newspaper printed with sordid sex scandal stories. Doesn’t sound like the best recipe for a meal, but for a British fast-food diner fish and chips in The Sunday News of the World (affectionately nicknamed The Screws of the World)), it was the cheapest and fastest fingers treat to eat. As a national dish, you love your burgers and fries, and we love our fish and chips.
It started out probably as far back as the 17th century with Spanish settlers in England, but it wasn’t until Charles Dickens wrote about “husky chips of potatoes fried with drops of oil” in “Oliver Twist” and “A Tale of Two Cities” that the meal started becoming a favorite, with the first fish and chip shop opening in Northern England in 1860.
It rapidly became the stock meal for the English working classes thanks to burgeoning railway lines from the fishing docks on the North Sea coast that shipped fresh catch to developing industrial cities of the 19th century. The meal was so popular that it was one of the few foods not subject to rations during World War II.
It’s remarkably simple. It’s fish, usually cod or haddock, that’s coated in flour, then dipped into a batter of more flour mixed with either water or soda water and beer, lager or stout. It’s cooked to order in a boiling pan of fat from lard or beef drippings. In other words, a fish fry.
It’s never been considered gourmet dining, but chef Gordon Ramsay, who has dreamed of it for 10 years, is about to upgrade its appeal with next Friday’s opening of his fourth Las Vegas restaurant, a $2 million, 40-seat Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips in The Linq Promenade.
Linq Promenade restaurant
Look for the upside-down fish logo in Britain’s traditional red, white and blue. Vintage red British telephone boxes are the way to enter for more Union Jack-themed interior. In a salute to The News of the World, one wall is decorated in British newsprint.
That was a paper that reveled in stories of the vicar running away with the married choir mistress or priest and mother superior abandoning the convent to live in sin. The Page One headline story, be it a royal getting drunk in a nightclub or a celebrity in a drug scandal, every Sunday was always a blockbuster. It was the charge of a proud drunken editor who worked only Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays before printing began.
Long before it became a Rupert Murdoch property and shut down (for exposing Prince Charles’ affair with the married Camilla Parker-Bowles during his marriage to Princess Diana), working a Saturday shift was a freelancer’s delight. It paid handsomely, far more than any other Fleet Street rag. I will always remember the Page One editor one Saturday returning drunk from the pub screaming at reporters that he didn’t have a headline story.
He yelling outrageous instructions: “Call the Palace and see what scandal they’re hiding.” “Call Scotland Yard to see what murders haven’t been solved.” “Call The Vatican and find out why The Pope is ill.” I landed the call to Rome and got a stunned press office priest who mumbled, “How did you find out? It’s a secret.”
We had our lead, and by 10 p.m. we were the only paper to run the headline “The Pope at death’s door.” He then made me call every five minutes for an update. Before the last edition went to print at 4 a.m., the Pope had passed, and we had the exclusive. The editor was passed out on the pub floor by sunrise in celebration.
Paper of record to lining
The story, of course, wound up weeks later soaked in white vinegar wrapping fish and chips across the land. So much for fame. Gordon told me that he will serve chips in a paper bag like the days of schoolboy summer holidays on the beach in Brighton, but his fish will be in Union Jack boxes.
“I’ve worked my ass off to get this one right. I perfected the batter,” he said. “We’re using hand-cut, sustainable cod filets all cooked to order. My neck’s on the line, but I feel very, very good about it. It might be the smallest restaurant we’ve ever opened, but it’s going to lead to a chain of them across America from Santa Monica next to Baltimore afterward.
“We had our first big tasting in early August,” he continued. “This is my fourth business in five years, so I’ve stayed very focused. Since then, five weeks of tweaking and tasting before going live Oct. 7 with the grand opening. This is not a job to me. It’s a passion, and I give it my all.
“We came up with something extraordinary on the back of our fish sandwich. Rather than just the fish and chips, we’re going to do a sandwich. It’s called a fish-which in a pita pocket. It’s incredible. I think that I’ve just found my perfect place. I’ve never been more confidant. I’m not stopping here.”
You’ll find me there for fish and chips and also for battered sausage and chips. Ah, happy memories of youth! Gordon also promises hearty seafood chowder, gulf shrimp and chips and chicken planks in this takeaway-style cafe from executive chef and general manager Marisela Gomez, who opened Nook Cafe and Nook Express in The Linq.
The chips will be served in a variety of flavors in addition to natural sea salt with house-made pickles. For dessert, there are sticky toffee pudding shakes, toffees and brittles.
Gordon and William Becker, executive culinary director of The Linq Hotel, Flamingo and Cromwell, plan a celebratory 85-mile bike ride Oct. 7 starting at 5:30 a.m. to be back for the 11 a.m. grand opening. “We’ll have to be fast like greyhounds,” laughed Gordon.
