Giovanni Fionda, a Scot of Italian descent who attended the high profile ceremony at London’s Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel with his parents, said that since the news of his success, which appeared on the Fishupdate website last month, was announced, he had seen an amazing increase in demand with visitors even coming from overseas.

Mr Fionda, told the BBC: " We have had people coming down from Aberdeen and up from as far south as York to the shop. There were also people from Ireland and Australia who had read we had won the award and were in Scotland on business and came in to try our fish and chips. Our car park has been mobbed with people sitting in their cars eating their dinner because they have come from far away and can't just take it back home like our regular customers do."

Last Friday the shop served 1.75 tonnes of potatoes, more than double the usual amount, and Mr Fionda said he has had to take on extra staff to cope with the additional customers.

Mr Fionda, who received the award from TV chef and fellow Italian Aldo Zilli, added:“I’d really like to present it to our staff and customers,” he said. “This is extremely important to us, and recognises how important our customers are in our business.”

The good news for the fish trade at the ceremony is that it was revealed that with nearly 276 million meals sold each year from over 10,500 shops, fish and chips remains the nation’s favourite takeaway.

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---