Forget gourmet restaurants and gastrofied pubs, the best food experience in the UK costs £7.30 and is served with harbour views. Choosing tradition over trends, Lonely Planet ranked eating fish and chips at number 31 in its Ultimate Eatlist, a new guide to 500 of the most memorable food experiences around the world, and recommended The Bay Fish and Chip Shop in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, as selling the finest in the country.
“Considering the setting, the sustainability and the beautifully cooked fish, is [the Bay] the best fish and chip shop in the world? The constant queue suggests so,” says the guide.
The key to the Bay’s success is its locally-caught, Marine Conservation Society-approved fish – plus chips made from Cambridgeshire potatoes cooked in sunflower oil. It has won numerous awards and a global reputation that has seen it take part in the annual British fair at Toyko’s Hankyu department stores.
Bar-hopping for pintxos (Basque tapas) on the streets of San Sebastián has been named as the world’s best food experience, while spicy laksa curry from stalls on Madras Lane in Kuala Lumpur came second and sushi in Tokyo third.
The decision-making process began by canvassing opinion and gathering submissions from the Lonely Planet community of experts, bloggers and writers. A vast list was then whittled down to 500 with the help of the publisher’s food editors, alongside chef Adam Liaw and food blogger Leyla Kazim.
British food fares pretty well overall: the humble scotch egg gets a mention, albeit at Fortnum and Mason, not Greggs, as does another classic, the pork pie (from Melton Mowbray); they’re listed at 132 and 186 respectively. However, toasted grasshoppers in Mexico’s foodie mecca Oaxaca and the decadent Tasmanian scallop pie both pip the pork pie by taking 184 and 185 respectively.
The crab sandwich, best eaten on a beach in Cromer in Norfolk, is at number 80, Scottish smoked salmon from the Outer Hebrides at 39, and Arbroath smokies for breakfast at 163 – all beating New England clam chowder at 218. Haggis with a side of Scottish hospitality comes in at 162 and a Sunday pub roast at 59 – both finishing above Berlin’s king of the hotdogs, the bratwurst, at 116.
Other classic European treats on the list are Italian gelato (24), pizza margherita in Naples (9) and souvlaki in Athens (21). And reflecting the current trend for global street food, Hawaiian poke (133) and Korean bibimbap (8) also get a mention.
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