189 High Street, Biggar 01899 221001 Style: Clean and bright Food: Standard chippy fare Price: £10 for a two-course meal Wheelchair access: Yes Hollywood may be a world away from the sleepy market town of Biggar, but both have been the setting for awards bashes recently. And while Daniel Day-Lewis may reign supreme in Tinseltown, here it's the Townhead that rules the roost - the cafe claimed the top award in its industry last month when it was named national Fish and Chip Shop of the Year by the Sea Fish Industry Authority. What makes this even more special is that this is the first time a Scottish establishment has won since 1998, and extraordinarily, there's no beach in sight. The sought-after award tends to go to seaside establishments - the Michelin stars of the chippy world are in places such as Whitby, Tobermory and Peterhead - yet Biggar is surrounded only by the rolling Lanarkshire hills.
This cafe is somewhat more comfortable than the average outlet, with a bright and airy decor and two sit-in areas. So desperate had I been to sample the Townhead's fare that I had taken the unusual step of booking a table - the shop had been all over the news and I had assumed the place would be full, but I needn't have bothered because it's almost empty. And it's cold, too, but that's only because the massive extractor fans are efficiently ridding the place of any soupcon of ponginess - and of any warmth. While we wait for our order to be taken, there's time for my daughter to enjoy the play area and the adults to laugh at the posters trying to convince us that fish and chips is actually very good for you. Granted, oil may indeed provide energy, but it's hardly the kind that will help you run a marathon.
Still, I can't wait to taste the tasty morsels everyone's been raving about. The menu is full of the usual chippy suspects, and there's even - much to my French father's horror - deep-fried pizza ("une ignominie") and spam fritters. But we've gone for the original stuff and ordered a proper fish supper. First comes the bread and butter, sadly not what I'd expected - let's just say there's nothing artisan about the bread, and the butter comes straight from the fridge in foiled portions, impossible to spread.
Thankfully, the piece de resistance, a plate heaped high with chips and two golden fillets of battered haddock, saves the day. The superb fish is obviously fresh, and the batter is the best I've ever tasted. It hasn't puffed up in the oil, but instead it hugs the fish, coating it with a wonderful crispiness and, amazingly, it's not at all greasy. The crumbed fish is pronounced just as good, while the battered sausage is greasy but tasty and the scampi is just ok. The chips are a little pale and underdone for our liking, but the full-on potato taste is there - apparently, the owners use Maris Pipers grown in England.
As for the accompanying mushy peas, they've never seen a garden in their life, and are of the grey and gunky kind. Not appetising, but the gorgeous onion rings, coated with the wonderful batter, put the usual foamy offerings to shame. With an award like this, I was expecting home-made tartare to crown the lot. Disappointingly - and it's another of these little but terribly offputting touches - the sauces come in little plastic sachets and shockingly, you even have to pay for the luxury variety.
We round off the experience with bowls of ice-cream. Extremely good, maybe, but why choose Equi's from Hamilton, when only a few doors down the road lies the famed Taylor's of Biggar's HQ?
As we leave, a small queue has started to form. There are bikers enjoying the winter sun on the benches outside, eating fish out of posh cardboard boxes. They carry the Townhead's motto: "Ye Cannae Beat a Guid Fish Supper!". Despite today's occasional but disappointing glitches, I couldn't agree more.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article