There used to be a chip shop on this stretch of Upper Richmond Road, and then there wasn’t, and then this Saturday there was again. Word had already got round by the time we walked past on a warm first-of-August evening: Hook & Batter had reopened on the old site, and East Putney had its chip shop back. Two adults, two kids, no booking, no plan beyond curiosity.
Whoever’s taken the place over has done a proper job on the room. It’s had a wash and a rebuild: wood-clad walls, new benches, a single table out on the pavement that wasn’t there before and that, on a night like this, was doing brisk business. Inside was already busy for a shop that can’t have been open more than a few days, maybe hours. A young woman at the counter took our order with a genuine smile in the middle of a packed Saturday rush, and Michael, working the counter in a lemon shirt – as in, pictures of lemons – had the look of someone keeping a close eye on a brand-new operation and liking what he saw.
We ordered like people who know what a chip shop is for: cod and chips, a saveloy, a curry roll, a portion of cheesy chips, a Pepsi and juice for the kids: £27.88 for four of us, with drinks. Try getting a family fed for that on the rest of this road, which these days runs to a steakhouse, two fast-food restaurants and, on the other side of Ikea bridges, a Turkish restaurant. This is the cheap, filling option, and it does not pretend otherwise.
The cod was the size you hope for and the batter was everything a chip shop batter should be: properly golden, properly crunchy, holding its shape rather than collapsing into the fish underneath. The fish itself was white, flaked apart easily, and more or less melted in the mouth. What it did not do, if I’m honest with myself rather than with my own nostalgia, was taste of very much. That’s not a failing of the kitchen so much as the genre: batter and fish, salt and vinegar, is a meal built on texture and ritual rather than flavour, and a proper cod and chips at Hook & Batter tastes exactly like every proper cod and chips you’ve ever had. The chips were the classic version too: thick, soft rather than crisp, a little squishy in the middle, not greasy, the ones near the bottom of the portion smaller, harder, a little crunchy.
One of my dinner companions, who wasn’t raised on this food the way many of us were, had plenty to say, none of it especially flattering. She found the fish underseasoned, the batter oily rather than crunchy, and the chips mushy rather than fluffy. She’s arguing with an entire national dish as much as with this particular shop, and she isn’t wrong that fish and chips, done correctly, is still a fairly bland thing eaten mostly for how it feels rather than how it tastes.
What she did love, without reservation, was the curry roll: a genuinely good cross between an Indian curry and a Chinese-takeaway spring roll, crunchy outside and full of actual flavour within.
By the time we’d finished, I’d talked myself round from uncomplicated comfort into something closer to an honest verdict: this is decent, well-made, properly cheap fish and chips, not a plate I’d rave about to a stranger, but exactly what I’d tell them was down the road if they asked whether there was a chippy nearby. That is not a small thing to be. Walking back out onto a road full of people who’d clearly been out enjoying the sun all day, I knew I’d be back, most likely on my own, next time the craving hits. The others will probably want something with more going on.
What Upper Richmond Road had lost when the old shop closed, it has now got back, done properly, at a fair price, in its first week already busy enough to suggest people had missed it more than they’d realised. It won’t make you rethink fish and chips. It will remind you why you liked it in the first place.
Hook & Batter, 122 Upper Richmond Road, East Putney SW15 · website not found · £27.88 for two adults and two kids with two soft drinks (15% opening discount on food applied at time of visit; everyday pricing will be higher) · Walk-in only, no booking seen, kids welcome, small step at entrance (not fully step-free) · card/cash and opening hours not confirmed · Opened this week
Thank you for noting that the shop is not wheelchair accessible. We will not be going there in that case.