Although this looks like a London cabby’s chip shop, its adherents are far more widespread. Every lunchtime, businessmen, hungry locals and passing trade wander into this blast from the city’s culinary past. Furnishings don’t seem to have changed much in the 50-plus years since fish were first fried here. It’s a cosy little spot, with Formica-topped tables, long benches and an old-school menu up on the wall.
New restaurants may try to recreate this ‘retro’ look, but Fryer’s is effortlessly genuine. Even Giuseppe, the Italian boss who’s been frying in London for the past 45 years, is a no-frills man; he claims not even to like fish, but he certainly knows how to fry it. Cod flakes were moist, against dark, dry and crisp batter, fried the old-fashioned way in beef dripping (or vegetable oil for veggies). Try rockfish as a stronger-flavoured alternative to cod, and make your own butty with a doorstop of bread that comes slathered in butter.