Find an Irish bar/pub. We have a local seafood restaurant/market in the area that does a really good version, otherwise, I've only found anything comparable in pubs. Never in chain restaurants.

There is a British pub in Santa Monica called Ye Olde King's Head that has reasonably good fish and chips. It's popular with British expats living in Santa Monica, and there is also a British expat newspaper that you can find there. I've also had good fish 'n' chips in Pismo Beach and other coastal towns in California, including Santa Barbara.

I always prefer Japanese tempura, however, and there are countless Japanese restaurants in Los Angeles - British food is rare here. One British restaurant on Sunset Blvd called The Cat & the Fiddle is popular, but I do not like it - it does have a nice patio, however, and I've spotted movie stars there. It is difficult for British cuisine to compete with other options here.

We had good fish 'n' chips in Fiji, but they cater to Australian tourists there.

Maybe it's a regional thing but great fish and chips can be found all over the Puget Sound area. Local pubs and seafood houses do a decent job almost always - light, flaky batter, no oily taste and perfectly cooked, very fresh fish. But some of the best comes from a local chain of 'chippies', Spuds (greater Seattle area only), that have been in business for more than 80 years. And always served with malt vinegar - cocktail sauce, tartar or ketchup costs extra :-)

Except for the fact that they do not offer mushy peas, you would think you are eating at any good UK fish and chip house!

thanks for replies - anyone know why this post was shadow-banned (or something) for several hours? I wasn't seeing it on the main list.

Anyhow I will make sure to try some PNW fish and chips if I ever get out there again to visit my brother and his wife.

we have a little restaurant about 30 miles from here in a little town that does really good fish and chips -- I would try "hole in the walls" rather than a chain. And as someone said "Irish pub" type restaurants.

I don't eat at Red Yuckster. Most anything not a chain on the Gulf cost. Select local restaurants that cook fresh fish are great.

Houzz is weird and posts go into limbo inexplicably.

Chain restaurants mostly have central commissaries where the food is prepped and sealed and/or frozen. This works fine for a lot of the meh dishes that chain stores sell, but fish should never be handled that way. Add the overuse of oil that you already mentioned and you have your answer.

Find a one off (no chain) place anywhere where fish and chips is their star product, rather than an after thought bought frozen at a catering supply house. Check the reviews. If people say "great fish and chips" and give details that sound like they've actually been there, it's worth a try. Even better if you can find blurbs about how the chef goes down to the docks daily to inspect the catch, or something like that, but that's not absolutely necessary. If you can smell "fishy" or "fried" outside the building but it doesn't smell totally delicious, give it a go by. They probably don't change their oil often enough.

There is a LOT of good food being made in the USA, including fish and chips, as others have said, but there's also a lot of absolute crap being sold and eaten. Since fish and chips isn't a big thing here, like hamburgers are, there are going to be a higher proportion of not so great ones than there are of burgers. That's why the recommendations for English or Irish pubs are so good--they usually get a lot of expats from those countries who know what good fish and chips are supposed to be like and are more discriminating and demanding.

Good comments.

Hate to sound like a snob (or not LOL) but maybe most Americans don't know any better.

I just looked at reviews for a restaurant I consider particularly bad for this. Considered one of the best in its region, but having completely disgusting fried food in my opinion. Has average reviews of 4 stars or over on all 3 main sites. Only a handful of the reviews hint at recognizing the problem with their food, with comments like:

"hushpuppies were way overcooked, almost burned!"

"my fish was over fried"

"The hush puppies were small and over fried."

There's really no harm in mentioning chains, it's not like I'm putting them out of biz with my little comments. The place that was a disappointment was Legal Seafood. I've been at least very satisfied with any other seafood (food, generally) I've had there. The closest fish and chips I've had in a chain restaurant was at a Bone Fish, but is still wasn't quite right. Haven't been in a Red Lobster in over 15 years so I wouldn't know about them.

I probably would never order fish and chips at Legal Seafood in the first place. F&C is, to me, pub food, food truck, mom&pop stuff. I've been to Bonefish twice, not impressed at all. I miss my California coastal joints so very much! Favorite F&C are at Phil's Fish Market near Monterey and Mitch's in San Diego.

http://mitchsseafood.com/main_page.html

http://philsfishmarket.com/

Come to Cape Cod!!

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"I probably would never order fish and chips at Legal Seafood in the first place."

Right, I did it on a lark, not normally what I'd order there. Just to see what they would do with it. Agree it is mere "pub food", as are most fried food items, really, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't expect some care taken in its preparation, especially at roughly $20 a plate!

My experience in the region is limited, but I have generally found seafood restaurants along the Pacific coast to be a notch above in quality, than the sort of places I was complaining about above.

A bit OT but final observation: I think places cut corners on fryer oil because, well, it's easy to do. Most people won't notice. I feel like the fries at Five Guys, for example, are not as good as they were back in the late 2000s. But maybe I've just gotten pickier since then! It has a hit or miss quality, I've even been in fairly expensive, non-chain 'upscale' restaurants and gotten fries that tasted like they were made with tired oil. OTOH, I've gotten perfectly fresh seeming fries from food trucks in DC.

We have fresh cod, fresh haddock, great white sharks but no tired oil LOL.

You have a point about the fryer oil, but my guess is it's more about money. Oil in that quantity is expensive, the labor to filter the oil and clean the fryer is expensive, the experienced labor that can tell by looking that the oil has had it and needs to be disposed of off schedule is expensive, pushing the timing for disposing of the oil is dead easy and cheap, and disposing of the oil, even if you have a recycler coming to you, can get expensive. And that all presupposes a general desire to run and clean and correct kitchen with oil that hasn't broken down or scorched. Unfortunately, a lot of the mom and pops and pubs and trucks we've been talking about as the best places for fish and chips are also the places that benefit the most, short term, from not being persnickety about the oil. Long term, it depends on how well they can convince their customers that all is as it should be when it's not quite.

I've mentioned before the best french fries I've ever had. It was in a restaurant at a location that seemed excellent, but where all restaurants failed including that one. The food was good while they lasted. The fries were pretty big in cross section (the big grid on the cutter), and made from big potatoes. They were a dark golden brown, which at first was off-putting because I'm so used to blond. The outside was crunchy however, and the inside was fluffy and soft and potato-y, like a fork whipped baked potato. Wondrous. I've occasionally met other fries that were sort of in the same category in style of preparation, but none that were anywhere near as good. I've had some success frying, but I don't have nearly enough knowledge to come close to guessing how they achieved this perfection.

Proper frying is an art. Yeah, the quality of the ingredients plays a big part in the outcome, but no amount of good ingredients can overcome bad frying the way they can save some other kinds of cooking. And if a place can't make a decent hushpuppy, I'd give any fried food there a go-by...

I find the batter is so thick on fish and chips here that the inside of the batter is still raw though the fish is cooked.

My sister has been back east visiting family (where she had fresh lobster rolls - yum!!) and when I picked her up at the ferry yesterday, she was starving. So we went off to the local pub for a late lunch/early dinner. She had fish and chips - I had oyster sliders. Her fish had a light, thin golden batter and was moist and flaky. My oysters had the barest of breading. Both were delicious (we traded bites).

Although I will gladly eat just about any french fry - a big food weakness - I do have my favorites. McDonald's are the worst. Thin and tasteless and unseasoned. A local fast food chain is known for their french fries, which are cut from fresh potatoes onsite - never frozen. They melt in your mouth!! The french fries that are darker on the outside and crispy yet very soft inside are often double fried. They are batch fried lightly, allowed to drain and then individual portions are fried again right before serving. That produces a very crisp exterior but a very soft, velvety interior.

We get a lot of great seafood here in the PNW - local oysters are the best and so very fresh - but lobster rolls simply do not exist here :-( Any lobster here is an imported lobster and all carry a hefty price tag.

I've never ordered fish and chips in an American restaurant.

Very picky about fish and chips and the fish always has to be Halibut. Which is common in Canada but not so much in the USA. And I want a light crispy batter, not a doughy batter.

Although we have a couple of places in the area that do Halibut Fish and Chips, my husband prefers my homemade version.

Oh, now I'm going to have to do fish and chips!

pillog-

"You have a point about the fryer oil, but my guess is it's more about money. Oil in that quantity is expensive,"

actually that was my point! It's expensive to fry well and since apparently most people don't know any better, restaurants cut corners there first.

seagrass, tired oil sounds nicer than rancid oil, but that's really what is going on. Just as I wish public school had a few hours of instruction in 'civil horticulture' (don't plant invasives, don't plant blue spruce in the eastern US LOL) I wish they also taught 'realities in commercial and industrial food production' or something. Frying does 'wear out' an oil. Oils in food go bad, other than microbiological degradation. They oxidize...air literally burns them into toxic compounds. Big league food producers have ingenious ways to mitigate these problems. High end frying apparatus have special 'molecular filters' to catch the burnt oil particles. Likewise most potato chips are packed in nitrogen gas to keep the oil fresh. That is what cracks me up about those so-called "gourmet" kettle chips, that are often way more expensive than Lays etc. Other than differences in texture, the main thing that's different is that they are over-cooked and slightly rancid tasting! But as with badly fried food, I suspect some people's taste buds now associate a little bit of organic peroxides and other side chain reaction byproducts with what fried food should taste like. Or what chips should taste like. But to me the best fried food has none of those flavors. Good Japanese tempura is actually very bland unless you dip it in something...which might or might not be what you're "supposed" to do, culturally. (I despise the taste of soy sauce, so you won't find me dipping it in that! I just like eating it plain...and sorry, not with chopsticks either. I am a willful philistine when it comes to some Asian cuisines LOL. I love Indian and Thai, but do not like sushi or pho at all!) Likewise, good high quality chips (UK sense - fat french fries) or french fries are a slice of a potato with its texture and mouthfeel radically altered, but not its fundamental taste.

That looks like perfection, ann_t!

We have a little hole-in-the-wall place that specializes in cooking what you just caught, but they also have fish & chips every Thursday. At least as good as any I had when I lived in London, although they do tend to dress the plate with a sprinkle of nutmeg before the fish goes on, which I wish they wouldn't do.

David, we do agree! When you said "easy" to "cut corners" I thought you were referring to sloth. :D

Gardengal, thanks for the insights into the preparation of the good fries! I've heard of double frying before, but not for such an outcome. The difference is probably intention (i.e., you also have to be trying for this specific end product).

Ann, I can't imagine anything being better than fresh caught and homemade, but isn't the point of fish and chips to be newspaper wrapped fast food from a chippie wagon when it's too late for even stoner food?

Pllog, I love take out fish and chips, but they have to be halibut and not every fish and chip joint is good.

We judge all Halibut fish and chips by a place in Toronto that had been there for over 60 years. Not many ever measured up.

Gardengal, that is the only way to make homemade fries. They have to be double fried.

What you seem to be talking about is what we call "beer battered fish". The seasoning varies depending on where you are. It is a light fluffy crunchy coating. You can put it on any firm white fish from halibut to cod to grouper to large mouth bass. There are always extra crunchy bits floating in the batter. The "chips" (fries) are separate from that.

I love tempura, but I don't care for beer battered fish. The fish we get in restaurants here is day boat, very lightly breaded, almost to the point of just waving the breading over the cod or haddock. Cod cheeks are my favorite.

A little OT but I mentioned above that we have great white sharks off our shores and a man died this afternoon from a shark attack in the next town from us. They have closed all of our oceanside beaches. Don't wade, swim or surf near seal colonies. Even if you stay near shore you have to be vigilant. There have been no shark attack deaths on the Cape since the 1930's. I feel very sorry for his loss of life, his family, the lifeguards and first responders as well as people who witnessed the tragedy.

seagrass

We have a fried chicken restaurant that is about 20 miles from here -- it changes it's oil EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! Fresh oil every day before the restaurant opens! They're chicken is amazing!

Ann, I hear you. It's like all felafel should be judged against the bus station on the Jerico road. ;) OTOH, while all isn't perfect, there are plenty, even some in the USA, that are acceptable to good. ;)