Anstruther Fish Bar, Anstruther

Located in the pretty seaside town Anstruther, the Anstruther Fish Bar has won numerous awards, including UK Fish and Chip shop of the year, so I felt like it was definitely deserving of a visit and a review. I went last year and loved it, but since then went to the Magpie in Whitby, and Poppies in London (read my review here), both of which are lauded as having amazing fish and chips, so I wanted to see how it compared!

You can eat in or take away - we decided to eat in as you get bread and butter, a hot drink and sauces included, and we were going to need A LOT of sauce! If you take away you get them in really cool newspaper print boxes though - we did that last year and it's lovely to sit by the sea and eat them in the sun (just beware of seagulls snatching your chips!).

It's all quite basic - the hot drinks come in paper cups...

...and the bread is bog standard sliced brown...

...but to me that's fine - you come here for good fish and chips, not bone china and toasted sourdough - for a chip butty sliced bread works just fine!

You can view the menu online here - there is a fair amount of choice of fish, and they also have daily specials. I thought the Pittenweem prawns sounded delicious (also partly because I love the word Pittenweem) but I decided to go for battered lemon sole as I love the lemon sole goujons from Waitrose and thought this could only be better! My dad had the same as me, my mum had battered haddock and Christopher had good old battered sausage.

Lemon sole

Haddock

Money shot of the lemon sole!

I think out of all the fish and chip shop chips I've had, these are my favourite. Despite looking quite pale and giving the worrying impression they would be undercooked/soggy, they are delicious - fluffy and hot in the centre, salty, sharp with vinegar and crunchy when they should be. The lemon sole was also excellent; it tasted so fresh and was meaty and flaky, with a light and crunchy batter. Both my mum and Christopher really enjoyed theirs as well, and the general opinion was that it is definitely one of the best ones we've been to. Out of the three I mentioned earlier, I think Anstruther Fish Bar wins best chips, The Magpie wins best menu because of the vast amount of choice, and Poppies wins best bread (I know I said sliced is good, but tiger bread has got to be the ultimate winner!). It's so hard to decide who wins best fish as I tried a different fish in each place, so we'll just proclaim it a draw on that one - they were all excellent!

Also, cool fact - Charles and Camilla have eaten here! If it's good enough for royalty, it should definitely be good enough for the rest of us!