Best Fish and Chips in Newcastle City Centre

For most of its history the city centre did not need to bother with fish and chips. The coast is twenty minutes away on the Metro, and anyone who really wanted a proper fry simply got on a train. That is still largely true, and any honest guide to this subject has to start by saying so: the centre has never been chip shop country, and the handful of late-night counters dotted around it trade on the night economy rather than on the frying.

What the centre does have is good fish, and most of it sits inside one building. Fenwick on Northumberland Street holds both the region's most famous chip shop name and its highest-rated seafood counter, a few floors apart. Add the Grainger Market fishmonger who has been buying at North Shields since 1936, one no-frills fry in a railway arch, and a seafood restaurant on High Bridge, and you have the real picture.

Colman's at Fenwick

Colman's at Fenwick is the city-centre outpost of the South Shields business that has been frying since 1926, now run by the fifth generation of the same family. The Fenwick restaurant means you can eat the North East's best-known fish and chips without leaving the shops.

The kitchen keeps the parent business's line on sustainable sourcing, and there are gluten-free options. It is a sit-down restaurant on an upper floor rather than a counter, and it keeps department store hours, closing at half six through the week and half four on a Sunday. Treat it as lunch, not a late supper.

Best for: Visiting relatives, or anyone who wants the Colman's name without the trip to the coast.

Saltwater Fish Company

Saltwater Fish Company occupies a counter in the Fenwick Food Hall and is both a fish bar and a working fishmonger, which is the whole point of it. The house line is that they cook what they sell and sell what they cook, and the two halves of the business sit a few feet apart.

Part of Terry Laybourne's 21 Hospitality group, it seats a small number at a counter facing an open kitchen, so it behaves more like a seafood bar than a restaurant. On the numbers it is the strongest fish venue in the centre by a clear margin, sitting inside the top hundred of well over a thousand Newcastle restaurants on Tripadvisor.

Best for: The best fish in the city centre, and the one to book if you only do one of these.

Forth Street Fish and Chips

Forth Street Fish and Chips is the closest thing the centre has to a proper counter fry: a takeaway in a railway arch on Forth Street, in the strip between Central Station and the river. There is nothing to it beyond a fryer and a counter, which is rather the point.

It carries a top food hygiene rating from its most recent inspection and it opens late, until eleven through the week and closer to midnight on a Friday and Saturday. It has almost no review footprint, so this is a recommendation based on what it is and how it is run rather than on a star rating. Know about it if you are walking back to a train, or coming out of somewhere in our guide to the best pubs and bars in Newcastle city centre.

Best for: A late fry near Central Station, eaten out of the paper on the walk.

Hibou Blanc

Hibou Blanc on High Bridge is not a chip shop and does not pretend to be. It is a Grainger Town restaurant and bar in the Edwardian Sunlight Chambers, built around the best British seafood available in each season, and it is the grown-up end of this list.

The bar and the dining room run to different timetables and both close at the start of the week, so check before turning up on a Monday. It shares a lane with several rooms in our guide to the best restaurants in Newcastle city centre, and it is the pick when the occasion calls for a wine list rather than a wooden fork.

Best for: A seafood dinner with a drinks list, rather than a fry.

Lindsay Bros, for buying it raw

Lindsay Bros is a fishmonger, not a chippy, and belongs here because the honest answer to where the best fish in the city centre is can be a slab rather than a fryer. The family firm has traded in the Grainger Market since 1936 and is coming up on ninety years at the same counter.

The team still collects from North Shields Fish Quay, and a good share of the city's better kitchens buy from the same slab. Nothing is cooked, so this is a shopping trip rather than a meal. The market itself is covered in our guide to shopping in Newcastle city centre.

Best for: Cooking at home: the freshest fish in the centre, over a counter.

What the centre is short of, and the twenty-minute answer

It is worth being straight about the gap. There are standalone chip shops in the centre, around the Bigg Market and the Clayton Street end of Grainger Town, and we have left them out on purpose: they rate poorly and they are built for two in the morning rather than for anyone looking for a good fry. If a traditional counter chippy is what you actually want, the centre is not where to find it.

The twenty-minute answer is the Metro. From Monument you are at the mouth of the river in about half an hour, in Tynemouth or North Shields, where the chip shops are the point of the place rather than an afterthought. In the centre itself, plan around the hours: Colman's and Saltwater keep department store times, the Grainger Market shuts in the late afternoon and does not open on a Sunday, and Forth Street is the only one of these still frying at ten o'clock. A home fixture at St James' Park fills every food counter in the centre from lunchtime on.

Know a city-centre chippy we have missed? Get in touch via our contact page.