John Gilchrist visits Calgary's newest fish & chips shop
Fish and chip shops are everywhere across the pond - and increasingly, they're beginning to show up here in Calgary as well.
This week on the Calgary Eyeopener, restaurant reviewer John Gilchrist visited one of the newest restaurants in the Beltline, British Isles Fish & Chips.
To hear the full column, click on the audio player below.
"It's one of the more frequent questions that I get asked - where can I get a good fish and chips," Gilchrist explains. "I thought I should drop in."
This is the second location of British Isles Fish & Chips, with the original restaurant located in Chestermere.
"It reminds me of the many 'chippies' you see in Britain, particularly the fluorescent-lit ones you see outside of London tube stations," said Gilchrist. "There's little in the sense of style — they're good for pumping out a good fish and chip to eat out of the newspaper wrapper while you walk home in the drizzle."
The restaurant fully embraces the British theme, extending their menu to feature other U.K. staples like liver & onions and mushy peas. They also serve a wide variety of British beer.
The main attraction — the fish & chips meal — was described as "bang-on" by Gilchrist.
"Middling good, nothing exceptional — the fish well cooked, the chips passable, the coleslaw, a decent rendition, and the mushy peas just as odd and repulsively addictive as they are in Britain."
However, Gilchrist says he was unimpressed with the presentation.
"The fish and chips are plopped indelicately onto the plate - it would look better wrapped up in newspaper."
The room itself caught Gilchrist's eye. Having been home to Italian, Vietnamese and Indian restaurants in the past, Gilchrist suggests that "the room needs to be gutted, quite frankly."
"It's an angular room with too many awkward corners that should have been rebuilt decades ago."
In the end, Gilchrist wasn't bowled over by British Isles Fish and Chips. "I'm going to give it a six and a half out of ten - it's a middling effort."
British Isles Fish & Chips is located at 1221 12 Avenue S.W.
