DENTON’S Renfrew’s Chippy is the plaice to be after being voted the best eaterie for fish and chips in the UK.
That is according to research conducted by Premier Inn which has revealed the best places to eat classic British fare based on more than 10,000 dish-specific TripAdvisor reviews.
With each dish tagged with a preconception of where to visit to get the best of each, such as coastal towns for fish and chips, the hotel chain wanted to find out if our assumptions were still correct.
The research looked for common key words used to positively describe specific food experiences, such as ‘best fish and chips’, with the family-run Renfrew’s Chippy battering the competition.
The news came as a shock to the Renfrew family who took over Eileen’s in 2013 – mother Helen, 69, and daughters Cheryl, 32, and Leeann, 39.
They had no idea they had won the award until they were notified by the Correspondent.
“It came as a surprise as we had no idea we were in the running for an award,” explained Cheryl.
She explained why she thought they had triumphed: “Leeann and myself are trained chefs and we only ever buy the best produce.
“We never go for the cheapest, always the best Atlantic cod and also haddock and plaice.
“We try to stay traditional English and we a novelty as not many of us remain.”
Cheryl added another key is having separate fryers for each product while they also have a gluten-free product range available every day.
You can also eat in at Renfrew’s which has 14 covers and Leeann’s, 12-year-old daughter Abbie is in charge of taking café orders.
There has been a fish and chip shop on the Belgrave Street for more than 100 years and Cheryl added only once it has been non-English when it was a Chinese.
Helen, meanwhile, is no stranger to the industry as she and her husband ran Chris’ Chippy in Denton in the 1980s.
They bought the greengrocers on Ashton Road and turned it into a fish and chip shop.
“Six or seven years ago my parents decided they wanted to start again and bought Eileen’s as it was the last English chippy in Denton,” explained Cheryl.
Queues had formed outside the chippy well before its 4.30pm opening time on November 29.
One of the first customers was Steven Artingstall who visits each Friday to pick up an order for his 90-year-old father Fred.
“I have been coming to the ‘Little Hut’ most Fridays for the last 15 years and they have always done brilliant fish and chips,” he said.
Father and daughter Philip, 35, and Amelie, 9, were also diners.
“Amelie can’t have gluten products because she is coeliac and the staff here take really good care of her. It is also really good food,” said Philip.
Noel and Margaret Ennis, aged 67 and 69, from Newton, Hyde, are regular visitors.
They began eating at the chippy about eight years ago and it became a Friday night ritual before going to watch Sale Sharks rugby team play.
“It is superb fish and chips – you would go a long way to finding better fish,” said Noel.
“We also go to Harry Ramsden’s at the Trafford Centre before we go to see Sharks play, but they are not a patch on here.
“There is a good range of food and it is value for money.”
Premier Inn has also created an interactive map that highlights the top three locations to find each food type, making it a trusty guide for anyone looking to sample the very best the UK has to offer.
A Premier Inn spokesperson said: “Traditions tend to dictate where the best dishes are likely to come from, but by looking into TripAdvisor reviews we’ve been able to ascertain the places that people really rate for Britain’s best-known culinary creations.
“With some surprising results, we hope this map can help people to find the very best places for their favourite dishes and inspire some new locations to visit across the country.”