At the Suffolk restaurant in Aldeburgh, nuggets are made from cod cheeks and served with a curried tartare sauce and seaweed salt. At the Spread Eagle in Wandsworth, London, Pitchfork cheddar nuggets come resting on a bed of warm onion chutney, with a side of saffron mayo. And, at the White Hart in Welwyn, confit chicken nuggets are drizzled with truffle mayo – “the boujiest chicken nuggs I ever did see”, as one commenter on the restaurant’s Instagram put it. More than a decade since Jamie Oliver did his best to dissuade the nation’s children from eating ultra-processed beige bites, nuggets – chicken or otherwise – are back on the menu, upgraded from fast-food favourite to restaurant-worthy fare.
“It’s our biggest-selling starter,” says James Jay, head chef at the Suffolk. “I think around one in six order it.” His nuggets sit alongside white-tablecloth classics such as lobster bisque, steak tartare and scallops – so what is the appeal of the seemingly simple dish? “It’s memory-evoking comfort food and there’s a playful element,” he says. “Ours is actually a play on words: ‘cod’s cheek-in-nugget’.”
