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National Geographic
a day ago
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
Where to eat the best fish and chips in Cornwall
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). Come summer, nothing quite hits the spot like a generous serving of fish and chips eaten beside the Cornish coast. Whether wrapped in vinegar-soaked paper — perhaps enjoyed on a harbour wall — or served in a pub garden accompanied by a chilled local cider, this iconic British dish never fails to satisfy. Traditionally made with cod or haddock, deep-fried to a golden crisp and paired with thick-cut chips, tartare sauce and a liberal splash of vinegar, fish and chips is a meal steeped in nostalgia, often evoking childhood memories of summers spent by the coast. Although its exact origins are a source of debate, what seems clear is that the dish first emerged in 19th-century Britain as an affordable, hearty meal for the working classes not only in London's industrial East End but also in Northern English mill towns. Its large helpings and low cost made it a wartime staple, too — one of the few unrationed foods — and over time, it became a cherished Friday-night tradition, rooted in the Catholic culinary custom of meat-free meals on this sacred day. Today, Cornwall's fish and chip scene is more diverse than ever, thanks to greater access to fresh catch and a commitment to quality ingredients not just in beloved local chippies but in a host of restaurants, including Michelin-acclaimed kitchens. Furthermore, innovative chefs such as Benjamin Palmer, at The Sardine Factory in Looe, and Paul Ainsworth at The Mariners, in Rock, are honouring this classic meal while experimenting with creative new twists. To discover the best of Cornwall's fish and chips this summer, here are six must-visit spots. Harbour Lights, Falmouth For award-winning chips and community spirit Family-run and proudly Cornish, Harbour Lights, in Falmouth, isn't just another chippy — it's a local institution. Set above the harbour, this long-standing favourite was a top-10 finalist in the National Fish & Chip Awards 2019 and sources its fish daily from nearby Newlyn. A regular cod costs £17.95, and double-fried chips — made from Cornish potatoes — start at £4.85. Beyond the classics, the team encourages diners to try something new. The menu features Cornish hake and plaice alongside starters such as salt and pepper squid, crispy whitebait and breaded king prawns. Diners who eat in get unlimited chips with their main course. What sets Harbour Lights apart, though, is its strong community presence. The team supports causes such as the Fishermen's Mission through regular donations and hosts the Harbour Lights' Community Hero Awards to recognise civic-minded local residents. They've also taken to the stage with the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide at Falmouth's Oyster Festival and even offer an annual gift card providing 12 fish and chip meals for £170 for their most loyal customers. The Sardine Factory, Looe For Michelin-garlanded dishes At Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded The Sardine Factory, the fish and chips is prepared with all the precision you'd expect of a fine dining establishment. Housed in a restored 19th-century sardine factory overlooking the harbour, this relaxed, award-winning restaurant is the passion project of local chef Benjamin Palmer, who returned home to celebrate Cornish seafood. Benjamin's take on traditional fish and chips (£20) — served with caramelised lemon and a selection of condiments — shares the menu with dishes such as dry-aged pollock ceviche, smoked haddock scotch egg and Cornish crab mac and cheese. The restaurant has a strong focus on local produce, with most ingredients sourced from the nearby Looe market and the surrounding area. Looe's Sardine Factory serves up not just traditional fish and chips, but also other Cornish-inspired dishes such as smoked haddock scotch egg and crab mac and cheese. Photograph by The Sardine Factory Harbour Chippy, Newquay For a classic menu with a modern twist Just a stone's throw from the fishing boats of Newquay's historic waterfront, Harbour Chippy serves succulent, flaky fish and chips with all the charm you'd expect from one of the best traditional seaside spots. Owned by Rob and Jen Randell, this family-run, takeout-only venue is located on one of the oldest roads in Newquay, offering the expected classics with refreshingly inclusive offerings. Alongside freshly cooked cod and chips (small portions from £6.10), there's a dedicated vegan selection — including battered sausages, pea fritters and nuggets — all fried in vegetable oil by the Chippy's vegan fryer. Plus, to cater to those with gluten sensitivities, a separate fryer is used for wheat-free batters and chips. This year, the couple also introduced a touchscreen ordering system, a nod to their forward-thinking ethos. If you've still got room for something sweet afterwards, pop next door to Newquay Waffle Shop, run by their son Matthew. The Mariners, Rock For an elevated, gastropub experience Michelin-recognised The Mariners serves a refined twist on pub classics, including traditional fish and chips. Relaunched in 2019 by Paul Ainsworth — one of Britain's top chefs and a leading name in Cornwall's food scene — alongside his wife Emma, this well-established spot has a terrace overlooking the beautiful Camel Estuary and puts a spotlight on Cornwall's finest produce. Under the direction of head chef Joe Rozier, who previously worked at Ainsworth's Michelin-starred No.6 in Padstow, the menu embraces bold, creative twists — from 'The Dog's Pollock', a pollock hot dog with pickled cucumber and parmesan, to Cornish monkfish served with cockle and clam butter. His elevated take on classic fish and chips (£25) includes line-caught cod, triple-cooked Yukon Gold chips, seaweed tartare, madras sauce and parsley peas. The Mariners is the vision of Paul Ainsworth, one of Britain's most celebrated chefs. Photograph by Chris Fynes (Top) (Left) and Photograph by @ (Bottom) (Right) Rick Stein's Fish & Chips, Padstow For old-time favourites with a premium edge It's hard to visit Cornwall these days without hearing Rick Stein's name — especially in Padstow, where his presence is particularly prominent. For a scenic day out, hire a bike in Wadebridge and follow the Camel Trail along the estuary into town, stopping for lunch at his popular fish and chip shop. Prices lean towards the higher end — with a standard cod costing £19 — but the quality and Stein's enduring reputation keep the crowds coming, so be prepared to queue. Fish such as haddock, hake, lemon sole and cod are fried in beef dripping for a golden, crunchy finish. Unlimited chips are available for an extra £3.95 when dining in, while a standard takeaway portion costs £3.50 and can be enjoyed by Padstow's picturesque harbourfront, just steps away. The menu also features small plates, including honey-drizzled halloumi saganaki, salt-and-pepper prawns and fish tacos. Argoe, Newlyn For a contemporary take that honours local roots Argoe offers a refined take on a fish supper — although not in the traditional sense. Frito misto with aioli is the closest thing this Cornish seafood spot gets to conventional fish and chips. Overlooking the town's busy working harbour, this intimate, wood-clad restaurant features contemporary interiors and a relaxed outdoor terrace. Owned by Richard Adams, a local, the restaurant honours Newlyn's rich fishing heritage with a daily-changing menu that's shaped by chef Angus Powell around the morning's catch. Sharing plates, including grilled piri piri monkfish, hand-dived scallops and smoked whiting roe flatbread, are served with chips or salad and a range of natural wines. Adding to the experience for diners, Angus can often be spotted heading down to the quay to collect fish straight off the boat — a fantastic way to see just how fresh the ingredients are. To accompany your meal, organic wines are poured from taps behind the bar. Since opening in 2021, Argoe has earned a Michelin Guide mention — a status reflected in the premium pricing, with grilled fish typically costing around £43 and chips available as a £6 side. To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
BBC News
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Tony Harrison's V: Why a poem outraged 1980s Britain
Forty years ago, Northern English poet Harrison published a powerful work inspired by vandalised gravestones in his hometown Leeds. Then, when it was screened on TV in 1987, a national furore erupted. "FOUR LETTER TV POEM FURY" thundered the front page of one British newspaper, condemning the "cascade of expletives". "FROM BAD TO VERSE" was the headline of another article, that quoted a Conservative Member of Parliament questioning whether the said poem "serves any artistic purpose whatsoever". And a group of particularly exercised MPs called for a debate in the House of Commons. The furore was about a poem called V by Northern English poet Tony Harrison – a work inspired by vandalised gravestones in his hometown Leeds – which was originally published in January 1985, but really became a cause célèbre when it was screened on national television in the UK two years later, in November 1987. It is not often a poem becomes a hot topic of conversation among the general public. The last time it happened was four years ago when Amanda Gorman read her poem The Hill We Climb at Joe Biden's presidential inauguration, although the poet's youth and outfit excited as much comment as her verse. Before that, it was WH Auden's Funeral Blues, after it featured in the hit 1994 romcom Four Weddings and a Funeral. But if it is unusual for a poem to escape the confines of the world of literature, it's virtually unheard of for one to provoke angry newspaper headlines, and prompt politicians to demand action and members of the public to furiously call TV channels. How it came about V had its origins in a visit by Harrison to Holbeck Cemetery in Beeston, Leeds, in May 1984. The cemetery stands on a hill – beneath which there are worked-out mine seams – and overlooks both Elland Road, home of Leeds United Football Club, and the University of Leeds, where Harrison, a poet and playwright, had studied Classics and Linguistics. Harrison, there to tend his parents' graves, found the cemetery strewn with beer cans and gravestones defaced by spray-painted graffiti – four-letter words, racist abuse, swastikas and a series of "V" letters. The nature of some of the graffiti suggested football fans were responsible. At this time, unemployment was soaring, and went on to reach 11.9% later that year, a level not seen in the UK since 1971 – and not seen since. The previous year, an award-winning BBC drama, The Boys from the Blackstuff, about unemployed tarmac-layers in Liverpool, had captured the zeitgeist and made a huge impact. The Miners' Strike had started some weeks earlier. In fact, the country was deeply divided under a polarising Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher. In the vandalism and the spray-painted daubings, Harrison saw further evidence of societal division, and it gave him the idea for his poem. Harrison was, at this point, an established and well-respected poet, playwright and translator. He had published several volumes of verse and been the resident dramatist at the National Theatre, while his 1973 translation of Molière's The Misanthrope had won great acclaim. On 24 January, 1985, V was published in the London Review of Books. It consists of 112 four-line stanzas, or quatrains, with an ABAB rhyming scheme, the same form as Thomas Gray's celebrated 18th-Century poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which Harrison sought to evoke in contrast with his own work. The "V" of the title stands for "versus" – which is also a pun on "verses" – but maybe also for "victory", and perhaps it is further intended to refer to the two-fingered "V sign" gesture considered rude in British culture. One verse reads: These Vs are all the versuses of lifefrom LEEDS v. DERBY, Black/Whiteand (as I've known to my cost) man v. wife, Communist v. Fascist, Left v. Right. The poem imagines the poet engaging in a dialogue with the person who has defaced the graves, and it features the obscenities and racist epithets used in the graffiti. "We didn't need Harrison to tell us then that Britain was divided, and we don't now, but V was a powerful articulation of those divisions and some of their causes," says Sandie Byrne, Professor of English at the University of Oxford. "The football supporter who, taking a shortcut through the cemetery, takes out his rage on the gravestones, is treated sympathetically, albeit with aggressive language to match his own. The Harrison figure understands the frustration of the third-generation unemployed among headstones celebrating lifelong professions. "The poem's power and endurance come from its energy, the impetus of the verse and the language, its anger, and its use of the personal in the service of the political." V did not appear to cause any outrage when first printed in the London Review of Books. It was subsequently published in book form by Bloodaxe Books in November 1985 and, again, troubled neither the UK's legislature nor its newspapers. Neil Astley, founder of Bloodaxe Books, and still the publisher's editor and managing director, recalls that, soon after the publication of the poem as a book, Harrison performed the entire thing in a late-night arts slot on Tyne Tees Television, which catered specifically to audiences in North East England, and "it went out without arousing any opposition as far as I'm aware". The moment of impact But then in 1987, it became known that a televised version of the poem had been made for national broadcaster Channel 4, directed by celebrated theatre director Richard Eyre and featuring Harrison reading the poem along with footage of, among other things, striking miners, Holbeck Cemetery and Thatcher doing a "victory" sign. At that point, all hell broke loose. In October, a few weeks before its broadcast, the Daily Mail reported on the "FOUR LETTER TV POEM FURY" on its front page. The activist and anti-obscenity campaigner Mary Whitehouse called the poem a "work of singular nastiness". Conservative MP Sir Gerald Howarth, who earlier that year had attempted to introduce legislation that would make it a crime to air material that might cause "gross offence" to a "reasonable person", was another who opposed its broadcast. He officially called for a debate in the House of Commons to try to stop it. One hundred and twenty one MPs signed the proposal. Howarth later admitted he had not read the poem in full. Harrison recalled in the 2013 BBC Radio 4 documentary, Exploring V, that at the height of the furore, a reporter from the Telegraph knocked on his door. "I said, 'Have you read the poem?'' He said,'No. I'm New'." Opposition to the TV programme came principally from right wing commentators but the Sunday Telegraph columnist and editor of the Literary Review, Auberon Waugh, whom no-one had ever mistaken for a left winger, found the poem "well written and extremely moving", as he wrote in his Telegraph column at the time. Ian Hislop, the editor of UK satirical magazine Private Eye, wrote an article defending it in The Listener, as did Bernard Levin in the Times, calling it "powerful, profound and haunting". And the Independent printed the whole poem in its news pages, with an introduction by Blake Morrison in which he wrote: "Those MPs are right to believe that the poem is shocking but not because of its language. It shocks because it describes unflinchingly what is meant by a divided society, because it takes the abstractions we have learned to live with – unemployment, racial tension, inequality, deprivation – and gives them a kind of physical existence on the page." The film was broadcast at 11pm on Channel 4 on Wednesday 4 November 1987. According to the logs of the Channel 4 staff on the switchboard – which were reproduced in the appendix of Bloodaxe's second edition of the poem, along with many of the newspaper and magazine articles about the furore – there were several calls from viewers irate at the "disgusting language". But others approved. Mr K of Watford suggested "politicians should address their energies into the social problems featured in the poem". Mr W of London said: "I am so moved the tears are running down my cheeks". The majority of calls were in favour of the broadcast. "The irony is, of course, that while Bloodaxe had sold a couple of thousand copies of the poem before 1987, as a result of the attacks on the Channel 4 film, V reached an audience of millions who might otherwise never have heard of it," Astley tells the BBC. "And if you read the poem today, it feels every bit as vital and relevant as it was 40 years ago." Sandie Byrne says: "I remember friends reading about the poem in the press, and assuming that it was just a meretricious piece studded with swear words by a shock jock seeking attention. Others picked up that it mentioned [miners' leader] Arthur Scargill, and showed scenes of the miners' strike, and assumed that those were its only subjects. Even among those who actually read it, the poem seemed to revive ideas about appropriateness in poetic diction that one would have thought long dead. More like this: • The 'obscene' book that became a bestseller• Why did Jane Austen's sister burn her letters?• 40 of the most exciting books to read in 2025 "What was unexpected and possibly shocking about V," Byrne tells the BBC, "was less the dialogue that represented a young football supporter swearing – what a surprise – and more the use of iambic pentameter quatrains, at a time when closely patterned, regular verse was regarded as outmoded, an unfitting vehicle for modern concerns. The transplantation of Gray's elegy from a small country churchyard to a large urban cemetery, the use of ellipses, slang, ordinary speech and Northern pronunciation perhaps suggested that poetry wasn't a sleepy dusty backwater, or necessarily couched in prissy, posh Southern or elaborate language." The poem was once again broadcast in its entirety on Radio 4 in 2013. Although the press anticipated controversy, there was actually little fuss. Perhaps listeners had become more used to four-letter words being used in all sorts of media. The racist epithets would have if anything, been considered even more offensive in 2013 than when the Channel 4 film was broadcast. The half-hour Radio 4 documentary that was aired before the reading of the poem that contextualised the swear words and slurs must have helped listeners understand their use in the work. Both poet and poem are now an accepted part of the literary canon. The website of the Poetry Foundation, a well-respected US organisation set up to promote poetry, describes Harrison as "Britain's leading poet-playwright", and says that V remains his "most famous poem". But while V's power to shock may have been somewhat diminished, it has lost none of its ability to engage and move the reader. The full text of Tony Harrison's V can be read on the London Review of Books website. Warning: it contains swear words and highly offensive racial slurs -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
