LONDON — A newly opened restaurant in an East London neighborhood is aiming to make waves by serving what looks like the perfect presentation of fish and chips, that quintessential British dish: a piece of glistening plump batter, chunky chips, mushy peas and a slice of lemon.
But one major ingredient is missing.
“There’s no fish in our ‘fish,’ ” says Daniel Sutton, a fishmonger and restaurateur who opened what he says is London’s first stand-alone “vegan fish” and chips restaurant, Sutton and Sons, in Hackney this week.
For lovers of succulent fried cod, that concept may be hard to grasp.
“What do you mean there is no fish?” Christopher Haddon asked the restaurant’s manager with a puzzled expression on Thursday. He seemed confused and left the restaurant, or chippie, shaking his head.
Vegans, however, could not get enough of the fake fish.
“It’s amazing, delicious. Mmmmm,” said Dan Margetts, 53, as he took a bite. “It’s the same look and texture but less oily, cleaner — and no ammonia.”
His husband, Edwards Dos Santos, a 49-year-old property broker, agreed, emerging from his bite with a big smile. He took out his phone and snapped a picture to share on social media.
“It’s just like artichoke, delicate slices of artichoke. It’s really delicious,” he said.
British cultural and culinary ties to fish and chips run deep. The wartime prime minister Winston Churchill called them “the good companions,” and some historians have even suggested that the dish helped win World War I by boosting morale.
Its origins have been disputed for centuries. Some historians say the first shop to serve fish and chips together opened in northern England in 1863, in Mossley, a small town that is now part of Greater Manchester; others argue that the first was opened in East London in 1860, by a Jewish immigrant family.
Regardless, the meal has become a British staple, and in many households, Friday night is fish night.
Mr. Sutton was inspired to open a hub for vegans after he put his creation on the menu at his original fish shop in Hackney and it was a hit, he says.
As for how he makes his “fish,” the main ingredient is banana blossom, an edible flower that he came across at a Vietnamese market. He found that marinating it with seaweed and samphire, a salty coastal plant, gave the blossom a fishy taste, and that it resembled fish when battered.
“The common vegan substitute for fish is tofu, but it doesn’t taste like fish, and it doesn’t batter right,” he explained at his new shop on Thursday as he took in customers’ reactions to the food from the corner of his eye.
A vegan couple from Stockholm, who were staying more than an hour outside London, had come to Hackney just to try the vegan fish. Another couple tried a “prawn” cocktail made from Japanese potato, finding it so similar to the texture of real prawn that one asked the manager to confirm it was truly vegan.
“There’s been some confusion, but so much excitement,” said the shop’s manager, Adrianna Bonesso, who used to work at a Sutton and Sons traditional fish-and-chip shop up the road.
“When we put vegan options on the menu of our other shop, there was so much demand we could hardly keep up. We needed to open another shop,” she explained.
Eddy Macit, a fish-loving Turk from the Black Sea area, has taken on the role of head chef at the new shop and prepares the ingredients by hand the night before. The shop has a range of vegan trimmings, including pies and mash and tartar sauce. (Vegan burgers and sausages are also on the menu.)
“You have to be much more careful when you are frying to make sure the consistency is right,” he said as he fried one of the banana blossoms. “You can’t just whack it all in like a fish.”
Mr. Sutton imports the banana blossom from Thailand and says that the vegan-friendly ingredients do not come cheap. One portion of fish and chips at the vegan shop costs 7 pounds and 50 pence (around $10), a little cheaper than the cost of the real fish, which starts at £10.50 a portion and goes up according to the type of fish.
Ms. Macit and Ms. Bonesso observed that the customers who came to eat at the vegan shop somehow seem different — more calm and friendly, they said.
“In the other shop, it was more chaos and lots of different types of requests,” Mr. Macit said, “especially on Fridays, which is like a religious day — fish-and-chips day.”
Victor Kremer, 25, an actor who came across the restaurant on his Google News feed, said: “This is very exciting. London’s first vegan fish and chippie. It feels like the start of something.”
But not everyone is embracing the venture. Some passers-by criticized the shop for advertising its creations as fish.
“It’s not fish. Why would you call it fish? Call it what it is,” one female passer-by remarked.
Ms. Bonesso said the local council made a similar complaint, warning that the items on the menu were misleading.
“We are working on new names,” she said. “Maybe vish for fish.”
