About us

The French invented ‘pommes frites’ (French fries) or as we know it in England 'the chip'. Both chips and fish were fried, so it was only a matter of time before someone combined the two and traditional fish and chips were born. Prior to this there were fish and bread shops, selling fish & bread on Fridays, based on Jesus feeding the 5000 with fish & bread in the Bible.

In 1871 the third ever fish shop opened its doors to London at 47 Endell Street and since that time it has served over six generations of Londoners with the finest fish and chips. The original customers of 47 Endell Street would have been workers from Covent Garden market and from local factories and warehouses.

During the Blitz of World War Two, the shop was used to host weekly meetings to discuss how to feed Londoners made homeless during the bombing. Fortunatley enough the shop survived the war although was severly damaged from a bomb blast across the road!

Regeneration of London started and the shop was re-built and re-opened as The Negris Fish Bar. The Negris continued to serve the fine traditional fayre of 47 Endell Street to Londoners throughout the swinging 60s and the bellbottomed 70s.

Peter and Howard, two local lads, bought the shop and changed the name to the now famous Rock and Sole Plaice. Covent Garden was now a very different place. The fruit and vegetable market was closed down after hundreds of years and all the traders were moved to a modern facility south of the Thames.

The Ziyaeddin family bought the business and are still running it 35 years later. It was in the heady days of Covent Garden in the 1980s that the first tourists began to visit the area. They would ask local people ‘What is good British food and where can we get some?’ and they would usually be sent in our direction.

To date we are in over 3000 travel guides of London in over 20 languages,we regularly feature in the national and international press, as well as many film and television appearances each year. All this attention really has made the Rock & Sole Plaice the small shop with the big name!