Top chef gives fish and chips a battering

AS A Michelin-starred restaurant chef, Dominic Chapman knows a thing or two about food.

However, his recent broadside on the nation’s favourite dish is likely to face some opposition.

Chapman, whose signature dish is rabbit lasagne, has suggested traditional British fish and chip shops are not all they are cracked up to be.

Speaking to industry journal Restaurant, he was asked to name “the most overrated food”.

“Fish and chips from a fish and chip shop,” came the reply. Restaurant Dominic Chapman in Henley-on-Thames does serve cod, but it comes with squid ragu, chorizo gnocchi and purple sprouting broccoli and costs £28.

Chris Kanizi, 65, the owner of the Golden Chippy, in Greenwich, London, told The Telegraph that Mr Chapman’s remarks were “complete nonsense”. “I cook with fresh fish, traditional fresh fish, fresh potatoes, fresh oil, cooked with lots and lots of tender, loving care,” he said.

“I think it’s complete nonsense. I think if everyone cooked fish and chips like him, the whole tradition of fish and chips would die. ” Chapman did admit to a taste for some types of fast food, saying he enjoys “a dirty burger” or a Greek kebab and wished he had invented the McDonald’s Big Mac.

Mr Chapman came to prominence in 2013 when he led a group of British chefs who travelled to India to give the locals lessons in making curries.

Critics described the move, which was said to have left Indian chefs “bemused”, as “the culinary equivalent of carrying coals to Newcastle”.

The chef, who already had a Michelin star to his name, earned during his time at the Royal Oak in Paley Street, Berks, took seven chefs from British curry houses to a curry festival in Calcutta.

Meals served up by Mr Chapman and his team included popular “British curries” such as chicken tikka masala and Birmingham’s balti dishes.