Simeone's
The Simeone family opened its first cafe at 429 Glasgow Road, by Yoker Athletic's ground, in 1901, and the fifth generation is frying haddock on Byres Road under the family name.
Why go
This is the traditional half of the Byres Road pair, fifty metres down from Old Salty's and running a different playbook. The family history is written out on their own site: a second cafe called the Empire opened in 1910 at 147 Glasgow Road in a wooden building that had been the Clydebank Co-operative Society's smiddy, second-generation Roberto Simeone married into the Celino family and moved into the fish and chip trade, they worked Gardner Street in Partick, and Mario went to Dumbarton before opening Mario's Plaice here in 2008 (Simeone's). His four children renamed it Simeone's in 2020. They kept the board: pizza crunch, king rib, a scooby roll, pickled onions in the jar, and a haddock listed angel cut with a breaded special beside it for anyone who wants the fillet without batter.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the large haddock, angel cut, or the special if you want it breaded. A scooby, which here is square sausage or link or bacon in a roll with a potato scone and a fried egg. Pizza crunch if you have never had half a pizza out of a fryer. Curry sauce on the chips and a pickled onion beside them.
- Avoid: relying on the old website, which now parks. Planning a late run on hours the shop advertised in 2021 without checking. Assuming any connection to Nico Simeone of Six by Nico, because nothing published makes one.
What locals & experts say
- The shop, on itself, from its site before the domain went:
Simeone's is at heart a 'traditional' fish and chip shop serving classic favourites such as Mac & Cheese, steak pie, and breakfasts in a modern-day setting.
Read as positioning, it is accurate to the board they actually run.1 - The current menu, on the scooby, which is the sentence that settles a Glasgow signature question:
Choice of square or link or bacon, with a potato scone and egg.
The same list carries a square sausage roll, and the Giant Breakfast is built onLinks or Lorne sausage.
3 - GlasgowWorld's all-time twenty, by Declan McConville in October 2025, has it at nineteen:
Simeone's is a family-run fish and chip shop in the West End that was first opened as Mario's Place around 2008.
A roundup with no verdict on the cooking, and the only independent line on this address.4 - Nobody has assessed the frying. The List crawled twenty Glasgow shops for its fish-supper guide and this one is not among them (The List). The Scottish Fish & Chip Awards list no placing for it in 2025, and it is absent from the eleven Glasgow shops nominated that year (Winners 2025). Every qualitative line about the food in this entry is the venue's own, and it is scored low-confidence for it.
Good to know
- Where: 285-287 Byres Road, on the Hillhead stretch, fifty metres down from Old Salty's.
- Timing: breakfast runs all day. The shop's own site listed sit-in until 10pm and takeaway until midnight Sunday to Thursday and 1am on Friday and Saturday, but that page is a 2021 capture and the domain has since lapsed, so check before a late run.
- Booking: walk-in, with a sit-in room alongside the takeaway counter.
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme records a Pass, rating date 22 February 2024, for Simeones at G12 8TL.7
- Unverified: frying medium, whether the fish goes in the fryer to order, and current hours.
- Signature check: this address delivers three of Glasgow's own, fish and chips, the scooby and the lorne, all evidenced on the current menu.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Classic Italian glaswegian chippy. Decent fish. But I go for breakfast rolls - and get a scooby. Square sausage, potato scone, etc." Jeff named this shop himself on 30 July 2026, asking "how did old salty's not end up on fish and chips? and simeone's as well?" That is the whole of his input on it.
Verdict
could-visit — The traditional half of the Byres Road pair, and the one that still reads like a Glasgow chip shop. Five generations back to a 1901 cafe at Yoker, into the fish trade through the Celino family, Gardner Street in Partick, then Mario opening Mario's Plaice here in 2008 and his four children renaming it Simeone's in 2020. The board is the argument: haddock angel cut, a breaded special for anyone who wants the fillet the other Scottish way, pizza crunch, king rib, a scooby roll with square sausage and a potato scone and an egg in it, and pickled onions in the jar. That is the city's own vocabulary rather than a menu built for visitors, and it is why the scooby and the lorne signatures attach to this address. It sits at could-visit and not higher because nobody outside the shop has assessed the cooking: The List's twenty-shop Glasgow crawl passed it over, the Scottish Fish & Chip Awards have not named it, and the only local write-up, Declan McConville's twenty-shop list for GlasgowWorld, ranks it 19th and says nothing about the frying. Cheap, sit-in or takeaway, and the fish supper is untested by anyone independent.