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.