Deep Fried Mars Bar appears as a signature dish in 2 United Kingdom cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Deep-fried Mars bar · Edinburgh
A chocolate-caramel Mars bar dipped in fish-and-chip batter and deep fried. Edinburgh's late-night Royal Mile tourist novelty since 1995; locals roll their eyes and order anyway.
The deep-fried Mars bar was invented at The Carron Fish Bar in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire in 1995, and spread south through the Scottish chippy circuit within a decade. Edinburgh's Royal Mile fish bars now carry it as a standing menu item, particularly Clamshell on the High Street and a handful of late-night counters near the Cowgate. The dish is genuinely terrible and genuinely long-favored; the chocolate melts inside the crisp batter sheath. The NHS Scotland regional health board issued a formal warning against it in 2007, which only made it more popular.
Where to eat in Edinburgh:
- L'Alba D'Oro
Deep-fried Mars bar · Glasgow
The deep-fried Mars bar is a west-coast chip-shop legend, a chilled chocolate bar in chip batter fried until molten inside. Treated as a novelty, it is nonetheless a genuine Scottish invention.
The deep-fried Mars bar was reputedly first battered and fried at a chip shop in Stonehaven on Scotland's east coast in the 1990s, on a dare, and quickly became shorthand for the Scottish deep-fried diet. Half novelty, half genuine chip-shop treat, it spread to west-coast chippies and remains a Glasgow curiosity, ordered as much for the story as the sugar rush.