IT IS perhaps what its thousands of customers knew all along – the Magpie Cafe in Whitby serves up the best fish and chips in the United Kingdom.
The North Yorkshire restaurant has been named as the best fish and chip shop of 2007 in a survey based on the votes of more than 10,000 readers of Coast magazine.
The Magpie Cafe, which has been in Whitby since 1937, is famed for the queues of customers snaking along the road outside. At the height of the tourist season more than 1,000 diners can pass through the restaurant's doors every day.
Its accolade is part of the Coast Awards, launched in October last year, to celebrate the people and places that benefit the British coastline.
The survey also named Bournemouth beach as the top in the UK for water quality, scenic beauty, wildlife, visitor facilities and outdoor activities. The seven miles of golden sands in Dorset was voted Best Beach in the UK.
Coast editor Clare Gogerty said: "This year, a new spirit energised the British coast.
"There has been a real excitement as beaches have cleaned up their act, new boutique hotels have opened and regeneration schemes have brought life back to forgotten resorts.
"The Coast Awards celebrate the best of this new-look British coast and for the first time have rewarded some of those who are making the coast the place to be."
Readers made nominations for eight other categories with the winners picked by a panel of judges including fishmonger and restaurateur Mitchell Tonks, Jonathan Shaw, the Minister for Marine, Landscape and Rural Affairs, and Ms Gogerty.
Best Coastal Cafe, Pub or Restaurant was jointly awarded to the Lord Nelson, in Southwold, Suffolk, and Porthminster Cafe, in St Ives, Cornwall.
Best New Building was won by the East Beach Cafe in Littlehampton, West Sussex, while Best Coastal Shop went to Tynemouth Surf Shop, in Tynemouth, North Tyneside.
Southwold Pier, in Southwold, Suffolk, won Best Seaside Attraction and Best Regeneration Project went to Waveney Sunrise Scheme, Lowestoft, Suffolk.
Surfers Against Sewage won the 2007 award for Best Environmental Campaign and Hotel Tresanton, St Mawes, Cornwall, was named Best Shoreline B&B/Hotel.
The 2007 Coastal Hero was awarded to Nicholas Crane, an expert cartographer, historian and explorer.
See how they do it: Get the Magpie's unique recipe in Yorkshire Cooks' Masterclass, a series of exclusive films from the Yorkshire Post available to watch free »The full article contains 425 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
