Despite their reputation as a traditional English food, Fish and Chips are relatively recent arrivals on the British culinary scene. The technology which allowed for this crispy combination to become widespread was twofold: an exstensive rail network to distribute the fish, and cheap coal fired deep-fat fryers. These last were developed toward the end of the 19th century in Italy where they were used to make fritto misto. Italian immigrants brought the technique to the UK and adapted to locally available ingredients. In Oliver Twists “time” most street food was either boiled or baked.

This neighborhood did, however, have a large Italian community from as early as the begining of the 19th century. And in Oliver Twist the existence of a fried-fish warehouse in this very area is mentioned:

Near to the spot on which Snow Hill and Holborn Hill meet, opens, upon the right hand as you come out of the City, a narrow and dismal alley, leading to Saffron Hill. In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs, of all sizes and patterns; for here reside the traders who purchase them from pick-pockets. Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows or flaunting from the door-posts; and the shelves, within, are piled with them. Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse.