Twitter Review: Overpriced tourist trap fish restaurant in Borough Market.
Full Review:
A beautiful sunny day in London and the girlfriend and I decided to go for a walk along the South Bank and up to Borough Market to pick up some treats.
After about seven miles of walking we decided to have a sit down and some lunch.The queue was as long as ever at Brindisa, so we ended up at Fish!, which I should have been wary of as it breaks two of my golden rules for eating out:
- As a native of the North East and Whitby's finest cod I generally never eat fish & chips south or west of the Wetherby Whaler.
- I avoid eating in obvious tourist areas unless I've got a trusted recommendation.
The sun obviously got to me as I broke both of these rules and paid the price.
To be fair to Fish!, it has a great location in Borough Market and is a lovely bright, modern, conservatory style restuarant with a large outside terrace and open plan kitchen.
The premise is also simple - a good selection of quality fish served in the way you want. It's the execution and pricing that lets it down.
We both ordered the same: beer battered cod and chips and both asked for it without mushy peas and the waitress kindly asked if we'd like something else instead. We both asked for bread & butter.
Service was quick, but impersonal. We had four different servers: one took our order, one brought our drinks, another our food and someone else cleared our plates. Never were we asked if we enjoyed the food or if everything was ok.
The first problem was the bread & butter. One of the joys of fish & chips is having some sliced bread to make a fish/chip butty on the side, so why on earth do Fish! serve doorstep size chunks of bread that you can't make a sandwich with?
Secondly, the girlfriends fish wasn't a fillet, but four bits of cod that were formed together in a mass of batter.
Finally, although the fish and chips were ok. The price was exhorbitant and came to £44 for fish & chips, bread & butter (we thought we were getting this as a free replacement for the mushy peas), two diet cokes and 12.5% service.When you compare that to the £12 I paid at Maze the week before (review to follow) for a beautfiully cooked bit of cod then it puts it into perspective. So, note to self: don't break my rules for eating out and stick to the stalls or Brindisa for eating out in Borough Market!
p.s. As a pick me up we had some fantastic salted caramel ice cream from Real France.
