Fish & Chip Night at The Rickety Press

With the Dodo pubs, you just know everything’s always going to be alright. And, these days, it’s a very valuable thing to be able to take joy in the simple pleasure of going to your local. Getting excellent friendly service, knowing you’re going to enjoy good food done well and be offered a selection of quality drinks.

I’m always very relaxed for a meal at the Rusty and or the Rickety, because I’ve never had bad food there. It’s simple – burgers, pizza, and now fish and chips – but it’s easy to overlook the pleasure of a simple thing done well.

Fish and chip Fridays at the Rickety are clearly popular, as evidenced by the crowd of happy diners we saw as we entered. The menu is simple, as it should be. This isn’t a clever take on fish and chips, some artistic re-interpretation. It’s a box of glorious golden crispy joy. The fish is covered in a beautifully crunchy batter, light and satisfying rather than soggy and claggy.

I initially wondered if I’d be disappointed by the chips, which are really somewhere between chips and fries, thinner and darker than the usual chip shop offerings. However, they were completely delicious. Mediocre chip shop chips suffer from being pale and flabby – these had a very high proportion of crispy exterior to soft interior and were beautiful, doused in salt and stinging vinegar, natch.

Fish and chip aficionados will be pleased to hear there is an excellent curry sauce on offer as well as the classic tartare, and I was happy to find the peas lightly crushed and flavoured with mint, bright and fresh rather than a muddy beige puree.

There’s really not much else to say about this one. The Rickety is great, they’ve put together a delicious fish and chip offering, to eat in or take away. Get yourself down there for simple comfort food done right, with the love and care it deserves.