Fish and Chips Done Right — The Spinnaker Way
By The Spinnaker Team · Dunmore East, Co. Waterford
Fish and chips is the most democratic dish in the British and Irish food tradition. It requires almost nothing by way of equipment or technique, it is available everywhere from motorway services to fine dining restaurants doing ironic versions, and it varies in quality more than almost any other dish because the only thing that actually makes it good — fresh fish — is the hardest and most expensive part to get right.
The beer-battered fish at The Spinnaker Bar in Dunmore East is €22.50. This is more expensive than a chipper portion. Here is why it is a different dish.
The Fish
Fish and chips is not a dish about the batter or the chips. It is a dish about the fish. The batter is a delivery mechanism and the chips are accompaniment. The fish is the point, and the quality of the fish is the difference between a dish worth eating and one that is merely edible.
The fish used in the beer-battered fish at The Spinnaker — hake or cod, depending on what came in that day — was landed at the pier at the bottom of the village the same morning. Dunmore East is a working fishing harbour. The trawlers that work the Celtic Sea out of the harbour come back in the afternoon with whatever the sea gave them. What is good, what is fresh, what is right — that is what goes into the kitchen.
The difference between fish that was caught this morning and fish that has been in transit for three days is not subtle. It is the difference between a piece of fish that holds together in the batter, that has texture and flavour and the particular sweetness of really fresh white fish, and a piece of fish that collapses in the batter and tastes of the cold storage it came from. If you have only ever had fish and chips from a chipper, you may not know this difference exists. Eat the beer-battered fish at The Spinnaker and you will understand it immediately.
The Batter
The beer batter at The Spinnaker is made with Irish beer. This is not a marketing embellishment — it changes the flavour and the texture of the batter. Beer batter works because the carbonation in the beer creates lightness in the batter as it hits the hot fat, and because the malt and hop character of the beer adds a flavour dimension that plain batter does not have. A good beer batter should be light and crisp, not heavy and doughy. It should shatter when you cut through it and not come off the fish in a wet sheet.
Getting the batter right requires the fat to be at the right temperature, the batter to be the right consistency, and the fish to go into the oil at the right moment. This is not complicated but it is precise, and precision in this context requires a kitchen that takes the dish seriously rather than treating it as the easy option on the menu.
The Chips
Proper chips for fish and chips should be cut from real potatoes, not par-cooked frozen product. They should have a fluffy interior and a crisp exterior, which requires the right potato variety and the right frying temperature. They should taste like potato — which sounds obvious but is not, because frozen chips often taste mostly of the oil they were cooked in.
The chips at The Spinnaker are proper chips. They go with the fish rather than accompanying it in a perfunctory sense.
The Tartare
Tartare sauce is the final element and the one that is most often dismissed as unimportant. A proper tartare — made with mayonnaise, capers, cornichons, a small amount of onion, lemon juice and fresh herbs — is a different thing from the squeeze-packet version that comes with most commercial fish and chips. It provides acidity and texture and a herbaceous quality that cuts through the richness of the battered fish in the way a good sauce is supposed to.
The Full Plate
The beer-battered fish at €22.50 is the complete version of this dish. Fresh hake or cod, properly battered, properly fried. Real chips. Tartare made in the kitchen. A pint of Guinness if the occasion calls for it, which it usually does.
It is more expensive than a chipper portion. It is also a different dish in a different category. In Dunmore East, at a harbour pub, with fish that came off the boats this morning — it is one of the better things you can eat in the south-east of Ireland.
Come Eat With Us
Walk-ins welcome most days. Ring ahead for Friday & Sunday evenings or groups of 6+.
Lower Village, Dunmore East — on the harbour.