J ust landed in the centre of Parkway’s restaurant riviera is a stylish modern eatery. Gone are the stale breadsticks and watery pasta ‘speciales’ of Trattoria Lucca, the old-school Italian joint that served its last slice of tiramisu last year. They’ve been swept away in favour of a slick operation promising to expand the horizons of the humble fish and chip.
And a quick glance at the chalked-up menu outside or the stripped-back maritime minimalism of the décor shows that Hook couldn’t be more of a contrast to its predecessor.
Hook is fronted by two affable Dubliners, who set up a fish and chip stall after their careers were clobbered by the 2008 financial crisis. Their take on tempura, and those acclaimed homemade sauces, swiftly led to the opportunity to open a restaurant in Brussels, where their food worked particularly well with the country’s famous beers.
This new opening is a direct import of the same successful concept, given a London 2015 slant. The choice of fish is dependent on what arrives fresh from Cornwall in a special delivery every day, with a big emphasis on sustainability, as you’d expect.
Yet somehow the menu manages to make a simple offering appear a tad confusing. Essentially there are two types of mains: crispy panko breadcrumb-crusted fish and chips for a tenner, or tempura battered specimens for £12. (There are also a couple of panko’ed chicken options, arancini for veggies, plus a range of intriguing sides.)
And yet the phrase “with seaweed salted chips” appears no less than eleven times on the single page, causing our eyes to dance somewhat. Once we become accustomed to the dizzying duplication, ordering is actually quite easy.
We plump for Cajun-spiced panko red gurnard, a meaty sausage of a fish that arrives squatting over a bottomless mound of chunky chips. The dense flesh works well against its crispy coating and provides large, firm flakes that prove agile enough for dipping, too.
Sauces – over 30 of ’em – are a speciality of the house. We plunge our gurnard into a warming chipotle, then the speciality ketchup, emboldened with more than a hint of underlying tabasco fire.
In our other custom-branded wooden box comes a decent slab of seabass, entombed in a crunchy lime, mint and wasabi tempura with a rich green chilli basil dip. Flavours are delicate rather than harsh and suite today’s catch well. Meanwhile the hand-cut chips are dunked into what is easily our favourite dip, a creamy garlic and truffle oil mayo.
Sides of pleasantly salty chorizo-stuffed squid, plus curried cod cheeks with a cumin and lime dipping sauce complete a formidable spread of golden, deep-fried items cast across the table.
So it’s refreshing to delve into a pot of mushy peas for balance, as deeply earthy as they look. With so many dips flying about, the celeriac and fennel slaw is served mercifully naked too.
For drinks, there’s a large range of beers and ales, some local (think bottles of Brixton Brew and cans of Camden’s IHL), some Belgian in a nod to their first European outlet.
The concept is certainly fun, and suited to Camden Town’s increasing range of quality fastish food options, although we’d like to have seen some lighter, grilled fish as an alternative. While the hip design casts a nod to other piscine openings, such as Dartmouth Park’s Lure Fish Kitchen (reviewed here), the attraction is simply traditional fish and chips given a global twist, rather than anything more experimental.
But, executed with assured style and far more flavour than a vinegar-soaking could ever provide, Hook is taking a timeless classic up a notch.
