Grace Dent reviews Gilly’s Fry Bar: Beautifully done and earnestly sourced

Our restaurant critic revels in Finsbury Park's new chip-shop-with-a-twist
Northern soul: Gilly's fry Bar offers an innovative take on the classic chippie
Grace Dent30 November 2017

Ambience 4/5

Food 4/5

On my way to Gilly’s Fry Bar, I was accosted by a woman in the street.

‘Jesus loves you!’ she shouted. ‘Go home to your husband and children and read your Bible!’ To which I wanted to reply, ‘It’s 7pm on a Tuesday and I’m in Finsbury Park en route to a chips and curry sauce restaurant to meet a waspish gay and scroll through topless photos of Frank Ocean. Sweetie, do I look like I have a husband or children?’ However, this seemed churlish. And also ungrateful for my lot. Because I very, very much like chips and curry sauce. And battered fish and sausages or, if I’m honest, almost all beige-coloured, carb-heavy comfort food. Anything you can log sheepishly into MyFitnessPal and have a judgy microchip suggest you sprint 11 miles. So Gilly’s Fry Bar — and did I mention they do a Salt & Vinegar Martini? — is my sort of venue.

When Neil Gill of Stroud Green mainstay Season Kitchen said he was opening a sort-of Japanese Northern-English chip shop selling battered cod, raw fish, chip butties, sweetcorn scraps and deep-fried Mars Celebrations, many were puzzled, but I got the gist.

There is a delicious hinterland between M6 chip-shop culture and Japan’s katzu-breadcrumbed and curry-drenched comfort food. The Japan Centre and Wasabi are safe spaces in London for Mancs and Yorkshirefolk wanting to be fed. Still, Gilly’s is a bit strange. It looks like a reclaimed greasy spoon. They play nicely loud northern soul. They serve pickled onion-infused bourbon shots. Gilly’s is ‘strange’ as in unique and a little befuddling. Not strange as in ‘wacky’. It is not Rascals in Shoreditch, which pledges a zero tolerance on ‘straight backs and polite small talk’ and encourages champagne spraying — and is, by turn, the London restaurant most likely to lead to my incarceration in HMP Bronzefied on a Section 18 ABH with intent.

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We started with a plate of spicy sweetcorn scraps. Glorious, individually battered kernels of corn with a kick. We cleared these and a plate of excellent deep-fried, thinly battered halloumi slices drizzled with honey. By this point, I’d drank one gin and elderflower Highball, tasted the Salt & Vinegar Martini with a samphire garnish, and the world seemed a cheerier place. We gear-changed to ‘elegant’ nibbling through a plate of raw sea bass and a good plate of raw, chopped salmon with cucumber. Then, having skirted dangerously close to valid nutrition, we shared battered cod, a side of fat, freshly cut chips with a side of sweet, heat-free authentically gloopy curry sauce and, due to compulsion, a battered sausage. I must warn you that attempting to appease visiting out-of-town Northerners with dinner at Gilly’s will possibly go awry when things begin arriving individually in small bowls. In fact, the curry sauce is in a tiny saucer. ‘They served fish and chips like they were at The Ritz!’ they’ll scream, reminding you why you keep changing your phone number, but these twats keep finding you every time The Stone Roses reform and play Finsbury Park.

Having skirted dangerously close to valid nutrition, we shared a side of fat chips with gloopy curry sauce

Everything was beautifully done, earnestly sourced and, weirdly, a touch muted in flavours because, I realise now, we mostly order battered stuff from low-calibre takeaways while we’re tipsy or tired, sloshing on salt, vinegar and oily, sugary condiments. Perhaps sitting at dinner one simply feels more self-conscious. And, bless them, they bought us extra curry sauce without being asked.

Gilly’s does two puddings. I recommend both. The small, fresh, hot custard-filled doughnuts were a work of art. Less artistic, but definitely unforgettable: battered, deep-fried chunks of Mars Bar, Milky Way, Bounty and Twix. I believe in eating without guilt, but even I felt guilty pushing these into my face. Still, Gilly’s is one of the oddest but nicest places I’ve been to in 2017 and that’s cause for Celebrations.

Gilly's Fry Bar

1 Diet Coke £2
1 Salt & Vinegar Martini £7
1 Pickled onion shot £3
1 Halloumi and honey £4
1 Spicy sweetcorn scraps £4
1 Salmon £7.50
1 Sea bass £7
2 Gin highballs £8
1 Aubergine £5
1 Sausage £6
1 Small cod plate £5
1 Chips and curry sauce £3.50
1 Tequila highball £5
1 Mini doughnuts free
Total £67

4A Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, N4 (gillysfrybar.com)

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