Kokova Magazine

Following judging by a team of industry representative judges, the below listed businesses have been judged to be a Top 10 businesses in the Independent Fish and Chip Restaurant of the Year Award category as part of the 2013 National Fish & Chip Awards, organised by Seafish, the authority on seafood.

The Independent Fish and Chip Restaurant of the Year Award is sponsored by Goldensheaf.

This award category is open to all bona fide independent fish and chip restaurants in the United Kingdom, and the award gives restaurants the opportunity to be recognised and rewarded for their excellence with regards to the food they serve, the service they provide, how they market and promote themselves, how they train staff and also the management systems they employ; in essence, everything that goes together to produce a great fish and chip restaurant.

The restaurants now progress to the next round of judging, which will run through until 21st September 2012, following which the Top 3 finalist restaurants will be announced.

Top 10 restaurants (ranked alphabetically and not in any particular scoring order)

Chamberlains Quality Fish & Chips
8 Wolverhampton Road
Oldbury
Birmingham
B68 0LH www.chamberlainsfishandchips.co.uk

Fosters Fish & Chips
812 Wilmslow Road
Didsbury
Manchester
M20 6UH www.fostersfishandchips.com

Harbour Lights
Arwenack Street
Falmouth
Cornwall
TR11 3LH www.harbourlights.co.uk

Poppies Fish & Chip Restaurant & Takeaway
6 - 8 Hanbury Street
Spittalfields
London
E1 6QR www.poppiesfishandchips.co.uk

Quayside
7 Pier Road
Whitby
North Yorkshire
YO21 3PU www.whitbyfishandchips.com

Richardsons
172 - 178 Dock Street
Fleetwood
Lancashire
FY7 6JB www.richardsonsfishbar.co.uk

Rockfish Seafood & Chips
8 South Embankment
Dartmouth
Devon
TQ6 9BH www.rockfishgrill.co.uk

Simpsons of Cheltenham
73 - 75 Priors Road
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GL52 5AL www.simpsonsfishandchips.com

Steins Fish & Chips
Waterfront Business Units
Riverside
Padstow
Cornwall
PL28 8BL www.rickstein.com

Trenchers Restaurant
New Quay Road
Whitby
North Yorkshire
YO21 1DH www.trenchersrestaurant.co.uk

All ten shortlisted restaurants will now compete against each other to be whittled down to a final Top 3 by late September.

Mystery judges will travel countrywide and visit each restaurant on an unannounced date before 21 September 2012, to undertake an in-depth judging assessment of each establishment in order to determine an overall winner, who will be crowned champion at the awards ceremony to be held at The Lancaster Hotel, London on 24 January 2013, and attended by over 600 guests from across the industry.

These shortlisted businesses have been recognised for their highly professional attitude to running a restaurant and their commitment to a sustainable future for the industry, and we wish them every success in the next stage of the competition.

Nikki Hawkins, foodservice and events manager at Seafish

The fish and chip sector is of great importance to the UK seafood industry, with over 352,000,000 servings of fried fish sold annually. The valuable work undertaken by Seafish in managing and running the awards, greatly assists in the promotion of the sector and in keeping fish and chips as the UK's favourite meal.

Visit www.fishandchipawards.com for further details about the awards.

Visit www.seafish.org to find out more about the work undertaken by Seafish.

This year the National Fish & Chip Awards celebrate their 25th anniversary.

As part of celebration planning they are looking for any pieces of history concerning the awards (or the Fish & Chip Shop of the Year Competition as it was previously known) that you may have or know of. This could be in the form of photographs of awards being presented to shops or press cuttings, etc., and which they might be able to showcase on www.fishandchipawards.com and also display at the 2013 awards ceremony in January next year.

If you do have access to any pieces of awards history they would love to hear from you. Please e-mail awardsentry@seafish.co.uk