For Londoners, a trip to the seaside is a longstanding tradition. At many towns in Kent, Essex, and further afield, daytrippers scoff Mr Whippys, spaff pennies on fruit machines, fight seagulls and huddle under umbrellas on shingle beaches. The best part of the sojourn? Finding the seafood shack. At places like Mannings Seafood stall in Margate or The Dukes Seafood on West Mersea, the food evokes holiday, something to differentiate the experience from the mundanities of everyday urban life. A pint of prawns by the sea, half a dozen oysters and, yes, we’ll try the cockles (most will remain uneaten).
But London itself has a long history of seafood as street food, ever since the Romans brought oysters in huge quantities from Essex. Many of those tourists at the seafood shacks are probably unaware that London, particularly the East End, was once full of similar places. Simple huts, shacks and market stalls selling affordable seafood, often eaten on the go.
Like pie and mash shops, these temples to cold crustaceans are now more common outside the capital, but many remain, often out of the limelight. There’s the seafood stall at East Street Market in Walworth, south London, which flogs pints of cockles, whelks and winkles and has been written about so evocatively by Isaac Rangaswami of the @caffs_not_cafes Instagram page. In Plaistow, there’s Brunsy Seafood Bar, which, like many extant shacks, is run by a pub. The Fish Stall in Bermondsey is a fishmonger that sells a few ready-to-eat treats, while Barneys at Billingsgate does both wholesale and retail.
If you live in London, you don’t need to go on holiday to get a pint of prawns
If you live in London, you don’t need to go on holiday to get a pint of prawns. While waves lapping onto pebbles may be the perfect soundtrack to a tub of crab claws, those looking for a fix need only to know where to go. On a rare sunny summer afternoon, I find myself in Welling, where southeast London begins its transition into Kent, like a well-trimmed fade haircut. It’s a very different London to Waterloo East, where my train journey began. Here, houses have front gardens and vehicles parked on their drives, St George’s flags adorn cars in anticipation of a potential Euro 2024 victory, and the Conservatives miraculously held on to the local constituency – just. Red double-decker buses are a rare reminder we’re still in the capital.
A 15-minute walk from the train station, you’ll find the Green Man. A lovely pub, the kind that’s increasingly hard to find further into London. It has carpets, pool tables, fruit machines, pints under £5, a large, inviting beer garden with actual grass, and in the car park there’s Fossils, a seafood shack. The menu spans the classics, from shell-on or peeled prawns to crayfish tails, whelks and mussels. Everything is around a fiver. Cockles, the lady behind the counter tells me, are the most popular order, but I’m not a fan, so opt for a small tub of crevettes – plump, sweet and salty, arguably the perfect food alongside a pint of Fosters.
Arranging a crustacean display
Pippa Gibb
Fossils is part of a dying breed, but seafood huts like this can be found in several pubs around south and southeast London. It’s run by John and Julie Welch, who own another branch, also by a pub, in Chislehurst, continuing a longstanding tradition, John Welch explains. Growing up in Deptford and Greenwich, he recalls pubs in the 60s and 70s offering free seafood at the bar – prawns, cockles and mussels in small bowls for drinkers to snack on. “All the pubs had seafood on the bars, and there were a lot of seafood stalls about,” says Welch. “Now they’re few and far between.”
Welch used to run a construction firm, but after the 2008 financial crisis, it went “down the chute, so to speak,” he says. Out of work, he turned to seafood huts, opening the first in 2012. It was in Welling, on a different site. At one point he held three stalls, now just the Welling and Chislehurst branches. Trying to earn money was the main reason he ran them, but those memories of seafood from his youth were inspirational, too. “I’ve always eaten seafood. I love seafood,” says Welch. “To be honest, I thought I’d play with it for a year or so, but I’m still doing it. We don’t earn a fortune, but it ticks over.”
Brits have a complicated relationship with seafood
Brits have a complicated relationship with seafood. We love fish and chips, but we’re not adventurous. We export a lot of the good stuff: mackerel, herring, scallops, langoustines and crabs, and import most of what we do eat: the so-called “big five” species of cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns, which together account for 80% of the seafood we consume. Yet we have a wealth of wonderful traditional preparations, from potted shrimp to kippers, smoked haddock to dressed crab.
At Fossils on a Saturday, most punters happily stock up on foods that never pass the lips of the vast majority of Brits. There’s a steady stream of customers, both young and old, many eating while sipping a beer, others stopping by to take pints of prawns home. Only open on weekends, Welch buys from Billingsgate, and usually runs out by Sunday afternoon. There are often whole crabs and lobsters. However, this weekend, there aren’t any, as it depends on what he finds at the market. There are always mussels, whelks, cockles, shell-on prawns and jellied eels. The last three are the most popular, says Welch. “It can be snowing or raining, but we get regulars, hardened seafood lovers that turn up every week.”
Fruits of the sea
Pippa Gibb
Twenty miles north of Fossils, in the middle of Epping Forest, Steve Cook runs the Oyster Shack & Seafood Bar, which he took over in 2019. Cook previously ran restaurants and gastropubs, which “consume you for 24 hours,” he says. The shack, which opens four days a week from 11 until 7pm, “is a lot more sociable, a nicer existence than running a restaurant.” The shack is in the car park of a pub – of course it is. The food is traditional. There are all the usual cold bits: cockles, whelks, oysters, prawns. Yet it’s also turning out some wonderful cooked food, recently earning a place in the Good Food Guide.
On a Friday lunchtime, on one of those summer days where rain is a constant threat, the site isn’t as crowded as I’ve seen before on hot holiday afternoons. Right by a car park ideal for exploring Epping Forest, it’s the perfect pre- or post-walk location. As the sun tentatively creeps out, crowds begin to trickle in for lunch, washed down with drinks from the King’s Oak. There’s a steady stream of friendly cockney banter from the staff – as much part of the experience as the food.
Talking of which, where to begin? A well-filled crab roll is superb. The freshest, sweetest shredded crab meat, a beautiful homemade tartar sauce with plenty of dill and chive, peppery watercress, plenty of lemon, and a thick layer of Utterly Butterly for nostalgia. The crusty poppyseed roll is exactly the right bread for the occasion. The rolls have flown off the counter since being introduced last year, and a newly launched lobster roll is making similar waves.
Next comes a cooked platter, but it’s not just the basics, with some lesser-known cuts of fish and cheffy flourishes. There are huge prawns marinated in chilli or mango and mussels with a hit of spice. But also cod cheeks, whiting, and monkfish tails fried in butter and garlic. Each component is perfectly cooked.
The shack has become a pilgrimage site, attracting influencers and rave reviews
The shack has become a pilgrimage site, attracting influencers and rave reviews. It was hard at first, says Cook. Winters always make the outdoor location tricky, and his first was freezing. “It was horrific. Tables and chairs would end up at the back of the car park.” Last year’s dreadful summer wasn’t ideal either, but now much of the seating is covered.
Though there’s some excellent cooking, the lack of certain facilities means things like chips are avoided, while they don’t serve drinks, which must be ordered from the pub. Cook describes the food as more “tapas-y style bits and pieces” than full-on mains. He used to visit Billingsgate but has now built a relationship with a supplier from Saffron Walden in Essex, whom he messages the night before asking what’s coming in fresh. Oysters come from Scotland, Ireland, Jersey or Maldon, cockles from Leigh-on-Sea, fish from Essex or Brixham. “It all depends on what’s good, really,” says Cook.
The bestsellers are king prawns in garlic butter (“people don’t mind getting their hands messy outside”), and in winter bacon and scallop rolls. At £37 for a mixed platter for four, it’s very good value, and Cook, who formerly did the lion’s share of the cooking, now has a team of seven.
Takeaway seafood
Pippa Gibb
Seeing the popularity of Fossils and Oyster Shack & Seafood Bar – and not just among old-timers – I wonder why there are so few seafood huts left in London. “I think it’s because of the prices,” says Welch. “We try to keep prices down, but when you go to the market everything seems to go up. We can’t keep putting our prices up; people just won’t pay for it. A fella said to me years ago, ‘There won’t be none of these left.’”
Cook adds that “London’s changed. It used to be an East End tradition to have jellied eels, winkles, and cockles on a sunny evening. The landscape of London has changed. It’s moved out a bit to Essex.” Cook says plenty of “old boys” come for the classics, but “you don’t get many youngsters eating jellied eels and cockles.” The cooked dishes and oysters are a Millennial’s dream, however.
London’s remaining seafood shacks may be few and far between, but their owners aren’t going down without a fight. “Winkles was a cheap Sunday tea. My dad used to bring them home with cockles and bits and pieces,” says Welch. “But it’s not cheap anymore. A bag of seafood can be 30 quid, and there’s hardly anything in it. We’re keeping alive a culture.”
