The Chippy by Spencer
Spencer Wilson ran the kitchens for the Vittoria restaurant group before he took the old Cafe Rapido site on Broughton Street in November 2020 and put himself behind a fryer.
Why go
The restaurant-kitchen background shows in what comes out of the range. Battered haddock goes into a hot dog roll with chipotle mayo. Wilson wraps aubergine in seaweed and deep fries it to stand in for the fish on the vegan supper, and he fritters Stornoway black pudding and veggie haggis.3 In November 2025 the shop won Best Team at the Scottish Fish & Chip Awards, a trade programme whose judges visit the premises before they decide.1 It runs with Keith Leahey alongside Wilson, sells takeaway wine and beer next to the suppers, and does collection and delivery off its own site.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the mixed fish supper, which is the shop showing its whole hand in one box: two battered haddock bites, two breaded haddock goujons, three lots of Whitby scampi, six squid rings and two breaded prawns, over chips. It was £13 at opening.3
- Order: the sea dog if you want the chef-shop idea in one item, and the seaweed-wrapped aubergine if you are the vegan at the table, which was £6.50 at opening.
- Avoid: treating the 2020 menu as gospel. The prices above are five years old and the current ordering page has grown a pizza section.
What locals & experts say
- Scottish Fish & Chip Awards (2025): Best Team, winner, listed on the awarding body's own roster alongside three Highly Recommended shops. The same year it reached the finals in two more categories, Best Fish Supper in the East and Best Chip Shop in the East.1
- Rosalind Erskine, The Scotsman (2025): reporting the finalists, she quotes awards director Warren Paul of Paramount Creative on how the judging works:
The judges will be visiting venues all across Scotland from Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh to the Isle of Islay, John O'Goats, Shetland and just about everywhere else too.
2 - Liv McMahon, The Scotsman (2020): on the site it inherited,
The site's former business, Cafe Rapido, is undoubtedly a hard act to follow,
a late-night counter that fed Edinburgh cheap fishwell into the wee hours.
3 - Gary Flockhart, Edinburgh Evening News (2024): third of seventeen in a reader vote on the city's chippies. That is a popularity count and it is labelled as one here.4
- The gap, stated plainly: no bylined critic has reviewed this shop's food in a source this database accepts. The case above rests on a trade award decided by visiting judges, a reader vote, and an opening write-up. Nobody has written a sentence about how the haddock tastes.
Good to know
- Booking: none taken. It is a counter, with collection and delivery through the shop's own site and app.
- Timing: The Scotsman recorded lunch and evening service at opening in November 2020. Treat that as historical and check the shop's own ordering page for today's hours.
- Price: the cheapest room in this Edinburgh guide by a distance, and the vegan supper undercuts most of the menu.
- Dietary: the vegan fish supper has its own line on the menu, and a veggie haggis fritter covers the vegetarian side of the fryer.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 11 June 2024.
- Getting there: the top of Broughton Street, a minute off Picardy Place in the New Town.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Chippy in a popular rating." That is the whole note. It is a lead: he saved the shop off a ranking he saw and left the programme unnamed. The closest match is the Edinburgh Evening News reader vote of August 2024, where it placed third of seventeen. That identification is a guess.
Verdict
could-visit — A restaurant group's executive chef went and stood behind a fryer, and the menu shows it: battered haddock in a hot dog roll, seaweed-wrapped aubergine standing in for fish on the vegan supper, black pudding and veggie haggis both fritted. That is more thought than a chip shop owes anybody, and the trade backed it in November 2025 with Best Team at the Scottish Fish & Chip Awards, a programme whose judges visit before deciding, plus finals in two more categories the same year. What it does not have is anyone independent saying the frying is exceptional. The award it won is about how the shop runs, and the reader vote that put it third in the city is a popularity count. So it earns a stop when you are on Broughton Street with £13 and an appetite, and it does not earn a journey across town on the evidence that exists.