Crest Of The Wave

Crest of the Wave is one of Heanor's genuine institutions — a fish and chip shop on the Market Place that has been open since 1948 and run on a deliberately small and traditional menu ever since. Cod, haddock, sausage, peas and curry sauce is essentially the whole list, fried fresh in small batches with no concession to the wider takeaway market the surrounding shops have moved into.

The shop has a slightly odd internal layout — the fish-and-chip counter shares the space with a small off-licence and mini-mart on one side, and a cluster of café tables at the back where regulars eat in. The most unusual feature is the trading pattern: the kitchen only opens twice a week, on Friday evenings and Saturday lunchtimes, which is unusual for a town-centre chippy but built around the proprietors' long-standing schedule rather than commercial pressure. Reviewers consistently rate it the best chippy in Heanor on the strength of the fish and the chips alone.

For the small handful of hours it actually trades, it is the chippy locals will queue around the door for. Outside those hours the shop is closed and the shutters are down.