East Dulwich Fishmonger Moxon's: Open Sundays Until 4 pm

Moxon's East Dulwich sells wet fish, shellfish and its own smoked fish from 151 Lordship Lane, SE22 8HX, and the shop does not open on Mondays. The counter runs Tuesday to Saturday from 9 am to 5:30 pm and Sunday from 10 am to 4 pm, so a whole bass or a bag of prawns for Sunday lunch can be bought the same morning.

Moxon's describes itself as one of London's leading fishmongers with more than 30 years in the trade. The business started at Clapham South, and the East Dulwich shop is one of its later retail counters, alongside South Kensington on Bute Street and a newer shop at 56 King Street in Twickenham. Each shop is supplied by the same buying operation, so what lands on the Lordship Lane slab on a Wednesday morning is close to what the other branches are selling that day.

What separates Moxon's from a supermarket fish counter is the sourcing story printed on its own site. The firm buys directly along the British coastline, naming Newlyn and Shetland, the South and East coasts, the Gower Peninsula in Wales and Peterhead in Scotland, and it says it works with specific boats it has built trust with over the years. In practice that means the slab changes with the weather and the season rather than following a fixed list.

The smoked fish in the chiller is made in-house rather than bought in. Moxon's runs a production kitchen called The Wimbledon Smokehouse, which it set up because it felt bought-in smoked fish did not match the quality of its fresh stock. The site lists salmon, cod, haddock, mackerel and kippers among the products, all smoked there and sent out to the shops.

The process is described step by step. Fish is brined using a hand-harvested Portuguese Atlantic sea salt, dried overnight, then smoked over blends built on beechwood with other hardwoods added for different products. After smoking it rests to develop its gloss before packing. The same kitchen turns out the fish pies, fishcakes and sauces that Moxon's calls award-winning, and those sit in the chiller cabinet beside the fresh counter.

If you want a benchmark for what the smokehouse range costs, the online shop lists smoked mackerel fillets at £5.00, a pair of kippers at £6.00, smoked haddock at £10.00, smoked cod roe at £6.45 and smoked eel at £14.00. A ready-made fish pie is £10.75, a tub of smoked mackerel paté is £3.45 and taramasalata is £3.65. Those are web prices for the same products the shops carry, and they are a fair guide to the chiller.

Moxon's publishes a short prep guide that doubles as a menu of what the fishmongers will do for you at no fuss. A fish can be scaled, trimmed of its fins, gutted, filleted, pin boned or skinned. Larger fish can be cut into steaks across the body with a section of backbone, or into supremes, which are portions cut across a boneless fillet. Knowing those words saves a lot of pointing at the glass.

A useful way to order is to say how you plan to cook. Supremes of a thick white fish suit a hot pan and a short roast, steaks with the bone hold together on a barbecue or under the grill, and a whole fish scaled and gutted but left on the bone is the easiest thing to bake for a table of four. Ask for the head and frame to be bagged separately if you make stock, since the counter is already doing the filleting.

There is a judgment call worth making here. Skip the pre-packed smoked salmon slices if you are feeding a crowd, because the online shop prices a 200g D-cut at £11.95 while the kiln roast salmon portion, a hot-smoked piece that needs no cooking, is £8.00 and goes further flaked over potatoes or a salad.

The opening pattern shapes the best time to go. Tuesday morning is when the shop reopens after its Monday closure, so it is the day to see a freshly stocked slab and to talk through what has come in. On Saturday the shop closes at 5:30 pm, earlier than many of the cafés and wine bars around it, and fish sold through the day is not replaced until Tuesday, so a late afternoon visit can mean a thinner choice.

Sunday hours of 10 am to 4 pm are the window that suits most home cooks. If you are cooking a Sunday roast of fish, aim to be there before lunch, when the counter still has whole fish to choose from. If you arrive at 3:45 pm and the bass has gone, the smoked haddock and a fish pie from the chiller are the realistic back-up for dinner.

Planning ahead removes the risk entirely. Moxon's offers click and collect from its online shop, and East Dulwich is one of the named collection points. Orders placed before 10 am can be collected the next day, collection dates run Tuesday to Saturday only, and the order has to be picked up within 24 hours of the chosen date because the goods are perishable.

Lordship Lane is a long high street of independent food shops, cafés and pubs, and the fishmonger is part of a weekend routine for people who live on the surrounding Victorian terraces. Expect cooks planning a dinner party, parents picking up fishcakes for children's tea, and couples buying oysters or crab on a Saturday afternoon. The queue moves at the pace of the filleting, so order everything at once rather than adding items one at a time.

Bring a cool bag on warm days. The shop wraps fresh fish for the walk home, but a bag with an ice pack keeps it in good condition if you are heading on to the park or doing more shopping. Moxon's online orders arrive in sheep's wool insulation that the company says keeps fish chilled for 48 hours, which is a useful option if you live further out and cannot get to the shop in person.

A fishmonger run fits easily into a slow morning on Lordship Lane. Walk the length of the street for coffee and bread before you buy fish, so the fish is the last thing in your bag. Goose Green, the open space at the northern end of the lane, is a short walk away and makes a decent stop with children before heading home.

If you have the whole afternoon, Dulwich Park lies to the south-west of the high street and is large enough for a proper walk, a boating lake visit or a picnic. Keep the smoked fish for the picnic and the fresh fish for the fridge. On rainy days, simply reverse the order: do the shopping, take everything home, and come back out once the fish is safely chilled.

Address: Moxon's, 151 Lordship Lane, London SE22 8HX. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 9 am to 5:30 pm, Sunday 10 am to 4 pm, closed Monday. Moxon's gift cards can only be redeemed online, not at the counter, so they are no use for an in-store purchase. Online delivery costs £4.99 on orders under £50 and is free above that, with delivery days Tuesday to Friday.

Ask the Karpo APP to line up a Lordship Lane morning around the Sunday opening, with coffee before, Goose Green after and the fish bought last on the way home.