After the wonderful fish 'n' chips experience in Brussels (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/bia-mara-brussels-03-2018), I had to try the equivalent branch in London. Luckily Hook in Camden is a medium walk from King's Cross and they also happened to coincidentally have a 40% discount from Mr. Hyde. We went there one fine evening to see whether the quality would be transferred.
There's a bit more variety here and the prices are higher especially with service. Obviously the 40% accounted well for all of that.
- Hot wings with smoked applewood sauce £6 - very good wings with an excellently flavoured but only mildly hot sauce;
- Charred octopus with curried apple & fennel salad £10 - very soft and tender. I liked the salad although others felt the raw fennel taste was too strong. Not for me though!;
- Whole seabass with tamarind & lime sauce, pancakes, pickles, sambal £18 - an impressive dish of fried fish to pick apart and wrap in thin sheets with sauce and herbs. The fish wasn't the softest but it was perfectly adequate;
- Lemon & basil in tempura batter with garlic truffle sauce & seaweed salted chips £12 - I was looking forward to this so much. It was fine but nowhere as exciting as the Bia Mara version. Most disappointing were the chips that lacked the crunch (and possibly also the seaweed salt seasoning) that was so distinct;
- Jerk in panko breadcrumb with spiced mango ketchup & seaweed salted chips £12 - a smoother batter version and I think a bit too overfried;
- Peas & dulse £3.5
- Salt caramel & pretzel pie with vanilla icecream £5 - I think pretzels were crushed to form the base and it had too much salt in it. The caramel was sweet but the best bit was the icecream.
So the fish and definitely the chips were inferior to that in Brussels. But the other dishes actually made up in terms of variety. I don't think I'd go back there for full price fish 'n' chips. I'd go to Poppies instead (accepting I haven't had it since 2013 so maybe it's changed...)