Who needs a restaurant meal when one has a bag of crisps? From prawn cocktail (Skips) and roast beef (Monster Munch) to Asian chilli beef (Kettle Chips) and pepperoni pizza (Walkers), there are as many crisp flavours as there are cuisines. More than a few are influenced by restaurant trends — ultra-expensive Italian truffle season has filtered down to the high street via Torres — but now chefs are reclaiming the potato patch for themselves. For the humble crisp has become the coolest ingredient in London’s hottest restaurants.
It's there in an omelette with Iberian ham shoulder, caramelised onion and crisps at Lolo (102 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UB, josepizarro.com), and in the hummus with masabacha and homemade hot crisps at Agora (2-4 Bedale Street, SE1 9AL, agora.london). There’s escabeche with mussels and crisps at Toklas (1 Surrey Street, WC2R 2ND, toklaslondon.com), morcilla crisps topped with chorizo, garlic and roasted peppers at Tollington’s (72 Tollington Park, N4 3AJ, @tollingtons.fishbar) and Le Noir de Bigorre ham and crisps with smoked piparra peppers at Ibai (92 Bartholomew Close, EC1A 7BN, ibai.london).
