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Just inside the entrance of Joseph\u2019s Fish & Chips is a map of the world full of little white sewing pins. Customers of the chippy are invited to mark their home nation \u2014 and the display reflects a wealth of diversity. \u201cHello traveller!\u201d reads the sign below. \u201cWe\u2019re delighted to have you here. No matter where you\u2019re from, we are all friends sharing good food and great memories.\u201d<\/p>\n
The notice goes on to quote the Oscar-winning American actress Shirley MacLaine\u2019s famous line: \u201cThe more I travelled, the more I realised that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.\u201d As pertinent today as ever before amid the context of far-Right marches and Faragian rhetoric. <\/p>\n
Pins on a map show people have visited Joseph\u2019s from as far away as Australia, South Sudan and Hawaii<\/p>\n
The map shows people have visited Joseph\u2019s from as far away as Australia, South Sudan and Hawaii. Almost every country in the world is represented. I see pins in Greenland, Chile, Pakistan, Cambodia and one in the Federated States of Micronesia, a remote group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. <\/p>\n
But the prevailing curiosity is North Korea, whose citizens aren\u2019t generally allowed to leave. Perhaps the North Koreans who dined at Joseph\u2019s were diplomats or held some other high-ranking position. Owner Turan Tunc tells me he isn\u2019t sure who they were. <\/p>\n
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Jospeh’s<\/p>\n
A simpler explanation is given for the influx of guests from South Korea: Tunc\u2019s 15-year-old daughter is a big fan of K-Pop. She posts about the shop regularly on TikTok, often aligning with the K-Pop community, and fans from the country are taking notice. \u201cWe\u2019re quite well known there now,\u201d Tunc says proudly, while frying a beautiful piece of cod<\/a>. \u201cMy daughter has taught herself Korean and she\u2019s almost fluent now. She\u2019s a huge fan of the music and the culture. And she posts on social media and people sometimes come in and mention it.\u201d <\/p>\n Joseph\u2019s is less famous in London, where there are chippies all over the city<\/a>. It must be hard to stand out. Its location is unlikely to help given it\u2019s some way along Tower Bridge Road<\/a>, tucked away beyond the busier Bermondsey High Road. Angela Hartnett and Jos\u00e9 Pizarro have restaurants<\/a> there, while French bistro Casse-Cro\u00fbte and Italian favourite Flour & Grape court keen interest among the Instagram crowd. But peckish Londoners shouldn\u2019t ignore Tower Bridge Road<\/a>, where they\u2019ll find the original M.\u2009Manze pie and mash shop<\/a>, Tower Tandoori, Tower Mangal\u2026 and Joseph\u2019s. <\/p>\n Tunc opened the chippy three years ago and named it after his father, who ran kebab shops in the area for 52 years. \u201cWe thought he should retire, but he was resistant,\u201d Tunc explains. \u201cHe finally did, aged 69, and went back to Turkey \u2014 where he was born \u2014 to relax. But he had a heart attack quite soon after. His kebab shops are all gone now.\u201d <\/p>\n Joseph’s<\/p>\n Tunc only joined the hospitality game recently having previously worked in films. He made music videos for star names, including one who really stands out but he implores me not to reveal who. Grander still was securing a \u00a32\u2009million budget to make an animated film in China. \u201cI was a bit naive,\u201d he says. \u201cI came back and thought it would be a huge success. It did OK.\u201d Tunc opened Joseph\u2019s with his brother and sister and they now have a second branch in Dulwich. He oversees the Tower Bridge restaurant with his wife Ebz and says the business is \u201cstable and secure\u201d, but \u201cup and down\u201d. High rents don\u2019t help, nor do soaring utility bills and punitive taxes. <\/p>\n Scottish fish, Turkish tradition<\/p>\n As for the food, \u201cfish prices just keep going up\u201d, Tunc says. \u201cBut my prices are fixed. I did have to raise them but I can\u2019t keep charging customers more because their wages aren\u2019t improving, are they? And I really only want to buy fresh fish, the best I can find, from Peterhead in Scotland. I get deliveries each morning and fillet everything myself. It\u2019s important.\u201d <\/p>\n Tunc sources his potatoes from Cambridgeshire. He peels and chops them every day using a large machine in time for the lunch-time service, which is sometimes busy, sometimes not. Ebz looks after the mushy peas, the tartare sauce and the pickled veg \u2014 onions and gherkins \u2014 which follow the traditions of Turkish cuisine, providing a nod to the couple\u2019s heritage. She prepares it all herself.<\/p>\n I sit down to eat and see a number of other signs. One details cod portions and lists sustainability credentials; another highlights rising fish prices. There\u2019s also a note on why Tunc tries to ensure his cod is from Peterhead rather than anywhere else. \u201cPeterhead really has the best cod available, although there are cheaper alternatives.\u201d <\/p>\n Is Joseph\u2019s the best fish and chip shop in London? Could well be<\/p>\n In the current climate he has to be increasingly flexible so the provenance of his fish each day can vary \u2014 occasionally they come from Iceland or Norway \u2014 and he lists this information on a blackboard, where he also states where the potatoes were grown. <\/p>\n Prices are in line with most other chippies in central London. Fried cod starts at \u00a312.90, or \u00a315.90 with chips, and each plate comes with all the traditional accoutrements. <\/p>\n I have cod. It\u2019s perfectly cooked, pearly white, the tender meat concatenate before flaking into beautiful pieces. As for the batter, it\u2019s light but generous, and the chips bring that delicate balance between soft and crisp, their golden exterior giving way to floury comfort. I douse them in vinegar and feel romantic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just inside the entrance of Joseph\u2019s Fish & Chips is a map of the world full of little…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[5456,3440,3438,27,5455],"class_list":{"0":"post-11518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-cod","9":"tag-fish-and-chip-shops","10":"tag-fish-and-chips","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-tower-bridge-road"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116384394538506496","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"<p><\/p>\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/josephs-fish-chips.jpeg\")
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