JAPAN, DEEP FRIED...

family, eating chips straight out of the bag with lashings of salt and vinegar, or a drunkenly-purchased chip barm from Leo’s scoffed in the back of a taxi home, it’s a staple of Britain that shows no signs of slowing.

I’ve seen (and joined) queues out of the door for a jumbo cod from Armstrongs in Shaw, spotted crowds squashed in against blue and white tiles in The Atlantic Fish Bar in Chorlton, and students piling in to Rusholme’s The Battered Cod for giant portions of chips.

Unperturbed by a surge in healthier lifestyles, new places are joining the fray too – Chips at Number 8 in Prestwich is revered by locals as the best and freshest in the region, and Hip Hop Chip Shop in Ancoats draws in the crowds with its mushy pea fritters and battered halloumi.

The latest is Chish and Fips, a Japanese-inspired chippy that’s opened in a railway arch near Victoria railway station.

Chish and Fips replaces Umezushi, the renowned sushi restaurant that was featured in the Michelin Guide, the Harden’s Guide, the Good Food Guide and in Jay Rayner’s good books.

With the departure of The Sparrows across the road on Mirabel Street (the Alpine restaurant has upped and moved to Red Bank), Chish and Fips is a lone ranger on this quiet stretch – but then, so was Umezushi, and its little-known location didn’t stop the rave reviews pouring in.

Owner Terry Huang cited challenges including rising ingredient costs and expensive staff training for the restaurant’s closure and change of direction.

On the surface of things, a chippy feels like a dramatic departure from the Umezushi days. But when you pick it apart, it’s not such a leap.

Tempura has long been a part of

Japanese cooking, with the art of battering and deep-frying introduced way back in the 16th century, and fish is at the heart of both sushi and chippy menus.

When we arrive, two chefs greet us with a wave across the tiny space, but orders are placed on iPads and human interaction is kept to a minimum.

The presence of the British chip shop – curry sauce, tartare sauce and mushy peas – is evident at Chish and Fips, though brushed with a Japanese influence that sets it apart from its battered peers.

£10 fish boxes are the obvious way to go – for that price you get a choice of four different fish, four different chips (or other vegetables loosely shaped and treated like a chip), four ‘sprinkles’ and six sauces.

You’ll find battered cod and haddock alongside wasabi sprinkles and Japanese curry sauce, as well as mentions of nori, miso and shichimi.

But there are also huge salt shakers, and bottles of Sarson’s malt vinegar on every table for chippy tea purists, and everything is served in polystyrene trays and paper.

Nuggets of battered coley – the more sustainable sister of cod and haddock – is obviously fresh, battered with its skin on.

It’s a delicately flavoured fish, which is perfect for the Katsuesque curry sauce that’s dark and laced with anise.

The curry sauce is so good that my dining companion starts searching for tools to use to get every last drop out – chips, fish and fingers are all fair game.

The regular potato chips are so splinteringly crisp that they leave a tray of crunchy debris in their wake. Some are so light it’s like they’ve had the usual starchy potato hollowed out of the middle and replaced by a whipped version – this is, as far as we’re concerned, a Very Good Thing.

It’s all covered in a smoky, slowburning shichimi chilli sprinkle that’s welcome to lay itself over all my dinners from this point forward.

Battered salmon is buttery inside its crisp tempura batter, adding further gluttony to an already oily fish.

The zucchini fries are chunky and light, but better as a sharing side between two – they soak up a lot of oil and, combined with the fish, leave my throat feeling an inch narrower. It’s a deadly combination.

I can’t help but reach across and steal a couple of spuds from my lunch date, hoping the tuber will act like a grease sponge.

The homemade tartare sauce, sharp and zingy, lifts everything, and I greedily shovel it out of its little pot with my rapidly disintegrating courgette stick.

The whole thing is heftily sprinkled in a salty, umami nori that’s turned everything a deep forest green, like the salmon’s taken a roll through a Christmas tree.

We share a pumpkin croquette (£2.49), a little puny for the price but a brighter version of the everyday potato scallop.

Mushy edamame (£1.99) replaces mushy peas on the Chish and Fips menu – it’s more savoury than its English counterpart and I’m not sure it’s better.

There’s some interesting liquid refreshment to be found here too.

Japanese soft drink Ramune (£3.49), in either ‘original’ or lychee flavour, comes with a marble jammed into the neck of the glass bottle.

The original purpose of the marble when the bottle design was first introduced to Japan in the 1870s was to seal the drinks and stop the gas escaping – but the little glass ball has stuck around despite the invention of lids. We’re instructed to use a tiny plastic tool in the lid to push the marble out, but it’s stuck fast and after sustaining a blood blister my mate has to flag down one of the chefs for help.

It turns out to be a light lemonade, but I’ll stick with my

Taiwanese honey beer (£3.99) in its regular can, thank you.

People came well out of their way for Umezushi, leaving behind the clusters of restaurants in the city centre to come out to this lone beacon of world-class sushi.

Will Chish and Fips reel in the same volume of punters, when there are so many chippies elsewhere? I reckon their hook is just strong enough.