• Jump to London's storied fish-and-chips shops.

THE FRYER’S DELIGHT sits on Theobalds Road, Holborn, a stretch of London where the buildings look like they’re coated in a century’s worth of smog. Outside the window, the number 55 bus thunders past as the butcher from next door walks out, clutching his meal of fried cod and chips. “They’ve been here 32 years,” Fryer’s employee João Magalhães says of the butcher. “We’ve been here for 63.” At a time when shiny new buildings and Pret A Manger sandwich chains are popping up at an alarming rate, these storied institutions are the outliers. While fish and chips may be the archetypal British dish, the fact is that as many as half of the 10,500 chippies across the country now face closure.

For the uninitiated, British “chips” are more like French fries, but thickly cut. They’re often sprinkled liberally with salt, then doused in malt vinegar — the unmistakable smell of that vinegar wafts down the street from any chippy. Some diners add a dollop of ketchup, while a spoonful of curry sauce is a favorite in northern England. It's common to see a large jar filled with pickled eggs on the counter. Historically, turtle soup, a popular dish in the eighteenth century (which used real green turtle meat until the species was near extinction), was also often on the menu.

For Magalhães of The Fryer’s Delight, the secret to the perfect fish and chips is twofold. “It’s the quality and the way you do it. We never have fish ready — we always make it fresh for the customers.” The batter has been a secret for 57 years. “Don’t cut any corners,” he says, “and do it from the heart.” He experimented for a full six months to perfect his batter, and he keeps it a closely guarded secret. For Knowler, the chips matter just as much as the fish. “There’s nothing worse than a soggy chip,” she tells me.

Huseyin Kanizi, who goes by Chris, has been frying fish and chips for 43 years and opened The Golden Chippy 18 years ago in Greenwich. He’d wanted to be a surgeon, but when the Thatcher government increased tuition fees, he followed his culinary interests instead. “I decided, this is England, this is what the English want, so I’m going to give it a go, and I’m going to do it better,” he tells me. “The thing that gives me the most pleasure is in the morning when the fish arrives. I open the box and stick my head in and I smell the ocean,” he says. “Twenty-six hours after it comes out of the water, it’s here. It’s like you catch it yourself.”

Unsurprisingly, the most popular order is still cod and chips, although Magalhães notes generational differences. “It’s only older people who eat skate — young people don’t even know what it is.” Ziyaeddin tells me that once-popular cod roe has fallen out of favor, and Sweetings has seen a decline in the old London classic, eels, which was a hugely popular street food in Victorian London. They were the hot dogs of their day, a cheap and filling source of protein, and one of few fish that survived in the heavily-polluted Thames.

Challenges and uncertainty aren’t new to these restaurateurs. Knowler says hiring new staff post-pandemic has been difficult. “You’ve got more chance of finding a unicorn,” she says. The Golden Chippy has had to introduce deliveries, despite concerns that fish and chips don’t travel well, while for Ziyaeddin, new avenues for success have proven difficult. “Catering has always been a hard game,” he says. “I always say I’ve been doing this 40 lifetimes, not 40 years, because every year this place finds a way to kill me, bring me back to life, and kill me again.” It’s hard work and the future is increasingly uncertain, but there’s pleasure to be had too. Magalhães says, “I enjoy it — otherwise you wouldn’t stay 30 years in one job.”