The Last Guardians of Beef Dripping Fish and Chips

A review of three chippies, and people with inflexible opinions on fat. Words by Jonathan Nunn.

Today’s newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Anthony Heard: British-Cypriot, lover of beef dripping, and a man who knew the value of doing things the right way.

The Last Guardians of Beef Dripping Fish and Chips

People with inflexible opinions on fat. Words by Jonathan Nunn

The usual suspects

There’s nothing like the smell of a fish and chip shop that fries in beef dripping. The way it seems to be undetectable from the road until you’re right up close, and then – bam! – it floods your nostrils; sharp, barnyard, overripe, like tropical fruit left out in a bowl in the heat. The afterlife of beef dripping is long: it subsists in the back of your throat, not as an organ chord that slowly fades away, but in waves, like grief or acid reflux, through cups of tea, cigarettes, second meals, brushing your teeth and a night’s sleep.

And yet, beef dripping fish and chips is dying in London. It has become mistakenly assumed that the only chippy in the city using it is The Fryer’s Delight, a Holborn institution two decades past its prime that is mainly of use to visiting Americans. Perhaps there’s something about the smell of dripping that doesn’t fit in with the modern city: it evokes another era, another London, holding nostalgia within it like a suspension. This is why it now only thrives in areas where Greek-Cypriots have been forced to cater for the memories of the British.