HOT: Hooked, 384 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

“A chain fish-and-chippery is HOT?” I hear you think dubiously.

I too had my doubts until my friends recommended that I give Hooked a try. For health reasons I really need to eat more fish at the moment and with a lack of fishmongers around my home (I’m going to test-run a seafood delivery service soon, but that’s another blog post), the next best option is a fish and chip shop.

Hooked market themselves as a place for ‘healthy seafood on the go’. So their menu includes grilled fish and brown rice and bok choy options for the same price as the standard battered fish and chips option (whereas many places will charge you more for grilled fish and the healthier sides). They also have salad available which is a little bit dearer than brown rice and bok choy/chips. If you go for the house fish (blue grenadier) and opt for brown rice and bok choy and your choice of house-made sauce, you can get a really healthy takeaway meal for $12.50.

RM and I went down opposite ends of the health spectrum. I chose the catch of the day grilled salmon with brown rice (I could have also chosen sticky rice), bok choy and Asian sambal ($17.90). Extra points for being asked whether I liked my salmon rare, medium or well-done – a question that even high-end restaurants have never asked me. My juicy salmon fillet was cooked according to instructions (medium) and along with the flavours of the soy-tossed bok choy and brown rice the house-made sambal wasn’t really needed.

RM’s Box for One ($17.90) was two pieces of tempura battered blue grenadier, 6 pieces of calamari and chips with sweet chilli sauce. The serving was more like Box for One-and-a-half/Two so I helped him polish off the plate. I really liked the tempura batter relative to the traditional beer batter and wish more places would offer it – wafer-thin, crispy and not drenched in oil. With the calamari he could have had salt and pepper deep-fried or grilled and the grilled version was nicely charred on both sides without rendering the flesh into chewy rubber. The hand-cut chips were similarly excellent, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside and Hooked’s website says that they do not use frozen chips. Apparently they are the healthiest chips in Melbourne? Maybe because they are fried in cottonseed oil.

The Fitzroy venue stretches from the people-watching pavement tables to a secluded beer garden at the back. The main indoor dining area is bright and airy, reminiscent of a sea-swept wooden cottage without verging too much on twee. Service was friendly and efficient – I think we waited for less than 10 minutes for our buzzer to sound with our just-cooked meals.

I’ll definitely be returning to Hooked. I’m already scoping out their lunch options – the grilled or tempura battered house fish with chips/rice and bok choy is only $9.90.