Every list of the best fish and chips in London is a list of names. None of them tells you when to turn up, which is the part people actually get wrong.
The oldest chip shop in the city is the one that publishes the answer. On its contact page, in small type under the opening hours, Rock & Sole Plaice asks you to allow one hour before closing time for restaurant service. The door says nine on a weekday. A table has to be seated by eight.
No other chippy checked for this page publishes that rule. All of them work to some version of it. Here is what each one does say about itself, read off its own website in September 2026 and rechecked on 28 September.
The oldest
Rock & Sole Plaice, Endell Street
Established 1871, and it calls itself London’s oldest fish and chip restaurant on its own front page.
Rock & Sole Plaice
- Address
- 47 Endell Street, Covent Garden, WC2H 9AJ
- Nearest
- Covent Garden, four minutes. Holborn, six
- Hours
- Monday to Friday midday to 9pm. Saturday and Sunday midday to 8pm
- Booking
- 020 7836 3785 or reservations@rockandsoleplaice.com
- Standing
- Established 1871, and describes itself as London’s oldest fish and chip restaurant
How to get in
The timing rule is the reason to read their contact page rather than a listing: allow one hour before closing for a table, with last takeaway orders at half past eight daily and half past seven at weekends. Against their own hours that puts the last weekday table at eight and the last weekend table at seven. Two floors of seating inside and an outdoor area on Endell Street. One small tell that the site has been left alone for a while: the copy describes a 153 year old recipe against an 1871 founding, which is arithmetic from 2024.
The 1914 room
The Golden Hind, Marylebone Lane
On the same street since 1914, and it keeps restaurant hours rather than shop hours.
The Golden Hind
- Address
- 71a to 73 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2PN
- Nearest
- Bond Street, six minutes. Baker Street, eight
- Hours
- Monday to Saturday midday to 3.30pm, then 6pm to 10.30pm. Sunday midday to 7.30pm straight through
- Booking
- 020 7486 3644, with online booking and click and collect
- Standing
- Trading on the same street since 1914
How to get in
The three hour shut between half three and six is the thing to plan around, and Sunday is the exception: straight through from midday to half seven, which makes it the easiest day to walk in and the latest weekend kitchen on this page bar one. Their own description puts them on Marylebone High Street while the address is Marylebone Lane, the quieter street behind it, so navigate to the address. Nothing about the drinks list or the licence is published anywhere on the site, so ask when you book if that matters.
The late one
Poppies, Hanbury Street
Four London sites, and the only kitchen here still frying at eleven at night.
Poppies Fish and Chips
- Address
- 6 to 8 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, E1 6QR. Also Camden, Soho and Portobello
- Nearest
- Shoreditch High Street, five minutes. Aldgate East, nine. Liverpool Street, ten
- Hours
- Monday to Wednesday and Sunday 11am to 10pm. Thursday to Saturday 11am to 11pm
- Booking
- Online. Parties over twenty by email to info@poppiesfishandchips.co.uk
- Standing
- Four London restaurants, with awards for diners choice and best independent fish and chips restaurant
How to get in
Eleven at night from Thursday to Saturday makes this the one that survives a long evening, and eleven in the morning makes it the one you can use for an early lunch. Read the history carefully, because the site tells it in two places and the two do not say the same thing: the homepage dates the founder to 1952, while the Spitalfields page describes Hanbury Street as his first restaurant and says it brought him out of retirement at seventy. Both can be true. Together they say the man is the old part, not the room. Three minutes from Spitalfields Market.
Three rooms, one set of hours
Sutton and Sons
Family run across north and east London, with a fishmonger attached.
Sutton and Sons
- Address
- Stoke Newington, Essex Road in Islington and Hackney Central, plus a fishmonger on Seven Sisters Road
- Nearest
- Stoke Newington, Angel or Hackney Central
- Hours
- Identical at all three: Monday to Thursday midday to 10pm. Friday and Saturday midday to 10.30pm. Sunday midday to 10pm
- Booking
- Stoke Newington 020 7249 6444. Islington 020 7359 1210. Hackney Central 020 3645 1801
- Standing
- Family run, sourcing its own fish for close to twenty years, with a fishmonger branch alongside the restaurants
How to get in
The only group on this page that keeps the same hours at every site, which takes the guesswork out of a late decision. One caveat their news page makes and their hours page does not: Essex Road runs the takeaway menu only, with bench seating, so it is not the branch for a sit down meal. Pickles and cakes are made in house and the ales are brewed in Hackney, which tells you the size of the operation better than any description would.
The Soho one
Golden Union, Poland Street
Newer than the rest and more careful about who can eat there.
Golden Union
- Address
- 38 Poland Street, Soho, W1F 7LY
- Nearest
- Oxford Circus, four minutes. Tottenham Court Road, seven
- Hours
- Monday to Thursday and Sunday 11.30am to 9pm. Friday and Saturday 11.30am to 10pm
- Booking
- 020 7458 4411 or info@goldenunion.co.uk, with reservations online
- Standing
- In Soho since 2008, and counts over 1.5 million customers served
How to get in
The detail that separates this one is in the kitchen rather than the dining room: sausages are cooked in their own pan, away from the fish, which they say they do so the menu works for more people, and the plant based dishes are built to suit vegetarian, dairy free and egg free diets. Pies, fishcakes, tartare sauce and mushy peas are all made on the premises and the fish is traceable to the boat. Nine at night is an early close for Soho, so this is dinner before an evening rather than after one.
What to know before you go
Closing time is not last orders. Rock & Sole Plaice put the rule in writing, one hour before closing for a table. Nobody else does, and everybody works to something like it. Arriving an hour before the door shuts is the single change that stops a wasted journey.
The afternoon gap is real and it is not laziness. The Golden Hind shuts from half three to six, Monday to Saturday. The older the room, the more likely it keeps two services a day rather than frying continuously.
Nine at night is normal. Golden Union and Rock & Sole Plaice both stop at nine on a weekday. Only Poppies runs to eleven, and only Thursday to Saturday. A chip shop is an early dinner in this city.
Not every heritage date means the same thing. 1871 on Endell Street and 1914 on Marylebone Lane are dates for the restaurant. 1952 at Poppies is a date for the founder, by their own account. Both are worth something. They are not the same claim.
Sunday is the easy day. The Golden Hind runs straight through, Sutton and Sons keep full hours at all three sites and Poppies opens at eleven. The gap that closes half of London in the afternoon mostly disappears.
One name to be careful with
Masters Super Fish, the Waterloo chippy that sits on nearly every London list, no longer has a working web address. It resolves to an Indonesian gambling page, which is what a lapsed domain looks like. That is evidence about the website rather than proof about the business, but it does mean every link to it from an older round up now leads somewhere unrelated, and it is left off this page for that reason.
It is the third London restaurant checked for this site to go the same way. The others were a Lebanese room in Borough and a Turkish one in Shoreditch, both still recommended in guides that have not looked recently.
Everything above was taken from each restaurant’s own published information and rechecked in full on 28 September 2026. Where two pages on the same site disagree, both versions are given rather than one being quietly picked. Confirm before you travel.
Where to go next
The seafood guide is the page next to this one, and it has the same lesson in a harder form: a raw bar and a kitchen in the same room keep different hours. The best pubs in London covers the other end of British cooking.
Late night restaurants picks up where Poppies stops, and the restaurants guide holds the wider field.
By neighbourhood: Covent Garden for Endell Street, Marylebone for the Golden Hind, Soho for Poland Street and Shoreditch for Hanbury Street.
Spitalfields Market is three minutes from Poppies, and worth reading before you go, because the market runs under two names on two websites whose opening hours do not match.
Questions we get asked
What are the best fish and chips in London?
Rock & Sole Plaice on Endell Street, established 1871 and the oldest of them. The Golden Hind on Marylebone Lane, on the same street since 1914. Poppies in Spitalfields, which has four London sites and is the only one still frying at eleven at night. Sutton and Sons across three east London rooms, and Golden Union on Poland Street in Soho.
What is the oldest fish and chip shop in London?
Rock & Sole Plaice at 47 Endell Street in Covent Garden, established in 1871, which describes itself as London’s oldest fish and chip restaurant on its own website. It has two floors of seating inside and tables out on the street, and it is open from midday every day of the week.
What time do London fish and chip shops stop serving?
Earlier than they close. Rock & Sole Plaice ask for one hour before closing time for restaurant service, which puts the last weekday table at eight against a nine o’clock close. Golden Union stops at nine on weeknights. The Golden Hind also shuts between half three and six from Monday to Saturday.
Where can you get fish and chips late at night in London?
Poppies on Hanbury Street in Spitalfields, which runs to eleven from Thursday to Saturday and to ten the rest of the week. It is the latest kitchen of the five here by a clear hour. The Golden Hind in Marylebone goes to half ten Monday to Saturday, but shuts for three hours in the afternoon first.
Is Masters Super Fish still open?
Its web address no longer belongs to the restaurant. It now serves an Indonesian gambling page, which is what happens when a domain lapses. That says nothing definite about the business itself, but it does mean any link to it from an older London list leads somewhere unrelated, so telephone before travelling to Waterloo on the strength of a round up.
Do you need to book fish and chips in London?
For a table at the older rooms it helps. Rock & Sole Plaice, The Golden Hind and Poppies all take reservations online or by telephone, and Poppies asks for an email for parties over twenty. Sutton and Sons publish a number for each of their three sites. Takeaway counters need no booking at any of them.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 113 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
