What with the 2023 Michelin stars being handed out last week, it’s worth considering what the stellar accolades from the renowned tyre company actually mean. One star denotes ‘a very good restaurant in its category’. Two stars means ‘excellent cooking, worth a detour’. The maximum three is given for ‘exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey’.
I’d argue that Chips @ No. 8 in Prestwich is all of these things. Firstly, the fact that it got down to the final 20 in the ‘chippy world cup’ in January strongly implies that this place is ‘very good… in its category’.
The awards, from the National Federation of Fish Friers, are the most prestigious in the chip shop industry. So that’s surely the very definition of a one star establishment. Tick.
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Secondly, the fact that I took a 26 mile round trip on the 60 to get there, I’d call that a detour and a special journey in one. Tick, and tick. So that’s the criteria for two of three stars nailed on too.
It will likely be a cold day in the fryer when this place boasts three stars on the door, but I don’t make the rules. If I did, Chips @ No. 8’s owner Dan Edwards would have been up on stage at Silverstone this week and being handed a red plaque and a spiffy new chef’s jacket.
This is an exceptional chippy for a number of reasons, one of which is apparent before you even get in the door. The side of the building is blessed with a two-storey mural of the magnificent Mark E. Smith of The Fall, a Prestwich resident up to his untimely demise in 2018.
The legend ‘Fear is something I try not to absorb’ is written beneath, Smith’s face festooned with fag smoke. That alone deserves another star, but even the world’s poshest places, with their foams, airs, gels, foraged sea grasses and fermented puddings, don’t have four.
Last Wednesday, the place was ‘quiet’, Dan said. It was quiet by his standards, perhaps. Of a weekend, and often also during the week, there’s a queue that snakes out of the door and around the corner, without fail. Tonight, it’s just a steady, but constant stream of customers.
Another reason this is an exceptional chippy is that he cooks his chips in beef dripping, as standard. You can of course ask for regular oil if you wish, but this is a beef-forward chip shop, as they all used to be in the olden days.
It’s actually not hugely detectable, as it goes, just a hint really. And yet there are other reasons Chips @ No. 8 is exceptional.
When I took two hungry kids last week, they’d heard tell of the meat ragu sauce that you have spooned over a steaming heap of beef-fried chips and were actually drooling, Homer Simpson style, at the thought. Sadly, as Dan’s been rushed off his feet since being named one the country’s top 50 chippies last week, he’d not had time to make it.
No matter. A large haddock (£6.30), a large chips (£3.30), a portion of deep fried Bury black pudding (£1.50, and there were more Homer noises at the sight of that on the menu) are ordered, along with a fried chicken sandwich (£5.70), mushy peas (£1.50) and a curry sauce (£1.50).
There’s seating around the edges of the chippy, a breakfast bar situation and another table or so, so if you’re ‘planning that special journey’, you can eat in. Far better to do that than to drive it back to south Manchester, not to mention the solid soundtrack of house music that accompanies your wait.
It arrives. It’s everything you’d hope for, bar perhaps being mithered by seagulls and a warm breeze coming off the sea. The chips are perfect. The haddock, perfect. The deep fried discs of black pudding, perfect, particularly when dunked in curry sauce, which is perfect.
I’m not bothered about mushy peas, generally. These seem fine. The fried chicken sandwich - a pleasingly alliterative brined breast on a brown brioche - is scorchingly good.
It’s the little things that make it great. The little flakes of crisped batter on the fish. The chips fried just right - not too far, these aren’t french fries - and with just that background beefiness.
The vinegar is applied with a spray bottle, a trick he’s shamelessly pinched from his time at Hawksmoor, to ensure even coverage. Every fish comes with a piece of lemon.
For pudding, not that it’s remotely necessary, a deep fried Creme Egg, a special for Easter, with all the profits going to local celeb chef Mary-Ellen McTague’s sterling nonprofit Eat Well MCR, which provides meals for those in need across the city. It should be a permanent fixture on the menu.
Chips shops might be a humble thing, and they’re suffering more than most at the moment. Oil prices have reached prices never seen before. Throw in energy costs, and it’s a miracle we have any left at all.
So go and support your local one. Or drive to Prestwich and try this one, because it’s every bit as good as people say it is.
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