Award-winning fish and chips are on the menu when Notts' newest chippy sets sail next week. The finishing touches are being put to the Cod's Scallops in West Bridgford at the new £20m Wilford Lane retail park, ahead of opening day next week.
The up-market chippy offers so much more than cod and chips, with a vast array of seafood - up to 20 different kinds in all. Locals will also be able to choose from salmon, monkfish, tuna, and sea bass. Shellfish lovers will be in for a treat with oysters, lobster, crab and mussels.
There's award-winning steak and Scale Ale pies to whet the appetite and all the usual chip shop favourites such as sausages, fishcakes, curry sauce and pickled eggs. If that's not enough spice lovers will find Momma Bains range of samosas and veggie curries from two Michelin starred chef Sat Bains and his mum.
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As well as takeaway and delivery, customers can eat in the 38-seater restaurant, the decor a nod to the coast, with crab basket lightshades and photographs of lighthouses and deckchairs on the wall. Sandwiched between two gyms - Roko opposite and the soon-to-open PureGym on the retail park, the location has prompted a new addition to the menu for fitness fans and the health-conscious.
Both there and all the other branches will be offering a superfood salad special, kicking off with sashimi grade tuna, mixed grains, black-eyed beans, edamame beans, carrots, onion, and an Asian-style dressing. The dish is macro and calorie-counted and recommended by a nutritionist.
If by some miracle you're still hungry and want to go the whole hog, the dessert section offers sticky toffee pudding, Eton Mess and soft-serve ice cream reminiscent of seaside beach days. And because Easter is just around the corner, don't be surprised to see battered deep-fried Creme Eggs on the menu.
The new-build restaurant is licensed, with a drinks menu of wine, cocktails, beer and fizz. Aside from the booze, other drinks include locally roasted Outpost coffee and a good old cup of tea.
Crowned the UK's best chippy in 2020, this will be the sixth Cod's Scallops restaurant and takeaway. Since launching in Wollaton in 2011, owner John Molnar went on to open a second in Carrington in 2016. The business later expanded outside Notts to open in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, Market Harborough, Leicestershire and Harborne, near Birmingham.
Operations manager Nick Clewley said: "John has always wanted to come to West Bridgford - it's such as wonderful part of Nottingham. It's the perfect site - it came along at the right time for us. It's exciting times. We started small in Bramcote Lane and have always wanted to keep that cosy feel to it. We didn't want to go too big with hundreds of seats. This makes it a bit more personal."
The opening comes at a time when all chip shops are being battered by rocketing prices for everything from packaging to oil. Mr Clewley added: "It's very tough. Absolutely everything across the board is going up - and it's going up by such large margins as well - it's not a few pennies any more. It's going up by ten, 20, 30 per cent at times. Oil has gone up nearly 50 per cent. It really does affect us.
"There is always a risk but we are confident in what we do and when the right site comes along you have to bite the bullet. We did Harborne just off the back of the Covid pandemic and touch wood that has gone well.
"We just have to make sure we're on top of our game, keep on doing what we do and keep our standards. The key is we grow at the right pace - not launch ten sites in the next six months and spread ourselves too thinly."
The latest site has created 25 new jobs - and all roles have been successfully filled despite an industry-wide recruitment crisis, bringing the total workforce to around 120. Gemma Davis, the assistant manager at Carrington, has taken on the post of manager, and all the staff apart from senior management live in the West Bridgford area.
The chippy is the latest to open at the retail park, where Lidl and Starbucks are now trading. Dunkin' Donuts, a tanning salon and a vets' practice are still to open. The West Bridgford Cod's Scallops will open its doors on Monday April 11 at 11.30am.
