If you ever look at the Restaurant Spy messageboard (see top of home page for a link) you will be acquainted with a quantity called Mark White. He helpfully suggested Fred’s chippy when I was looking for one in Littlehampton in November. Well, I finally took him up on his suggestion during a bitterly cold March Easter.

‘Situated by the banks of the picturesque River Arun,’ says Fred’s website, ‘in the old town of Littlehampton in West Sussex, Fred’s Fish and Chip Shop is a traditional family owned English Fish and Chip shop… Fish and Chip Shop of the Year for 2002 and in SIX previous years, Fred’s has been serving high quality fish and chips for two generations.’

Ok, so there was D, Maz, and me; we found Fred’s without a problem and sat down in the tiny seating area, being swiftly served by a friendly chap. D had the seafood platter with mushy peas, I had medium (there being no small) cod and chips with non-mushy peas and a gherkin, and Maz had same as me but with mushy peas. Three mugs of tea.

Fred’s is good but not outstanding. For a start it’s a bit tiny and the doors were open much of the time with an icy wind blowing in. But the food itself was excellent. My gherkin arrived minutes before anything else, on a large china plate, like some sort of lonely starter. Strange but nothing to moan about. Food arrived promptly. Very good hot chips – loads of them – crisp cod (huge piece: hence my attempt to get a small), and nice garden peas khaki of hue and boiled to within an inch of their lives, as they should be in a chippy. The mushy peas looked good too: a sort of violently fluorescent tartrazine-green in colour.

The size of the seafood platter had to be seen to be believed: three pieces of battered fish and about a million scampi croquettes, with a mountain of chips and mushy peas. D ate the lot!

The tea was hot, but the ketchup, mustard etc, came in sachets, and the table needed a wipe.

Looking out across the ranked fish and savaloys nestling in that steel thing with windows that all chip shops have to keep things hot, the view is directly onto the river Arun at its junction with the sea, with boats moored on the steep mud banks. Very nice and nautical.

Fred’s is a mixed blessing: fine for a sit down and a proper hot face-filling feed, but not perhaps a destination chippy. Best order the grub and eat it by the river or wandering around the increasingly gentrified Littlehampton streets, I should think.

Recommended. Perry Stalsis 2008