chips. The thick-cut french fries have been hanging around British pans for around 350 years, since potatoes arrived in the late 1500s, by way of Peru and Virginia. They’re key to the UK’s quintessential working-class dishes, starting with fish-and-chips. More recently, as pubs have struggled, they’ve given the drinking spots an additional revenue stream.
Budget with ET
India’s growing trade imbalance with China: Can Budget 2025 provide a solution?
Will Chandrababu Naidu-ruled Andhra Pradesh continue to be Modi govt's focus point?
Tax cuts, tariff, growth strategies top Indian industry's Budget wish list
But lately, chips have extended their reach, showing up in places they weren’t always welcome. The unapologetically UK dish is on chalkboard menus at the Frenchest of bistros and is a supplemental offering at fine dining spots where you’d expect to find a black truffle upgrade.
Exhibit A is Tollington’s, the buzzy, Spanish-styled restaurant in a former fish-and-chips shop in Finsbury Park. The standout on the strong tapas menu, alongside dishes like squid and octopus cooked à la plancha, is chips bravas, a notable tweak on the classic version made with diced potatoes (and one of the 15 best dishes I ate last year). “I thought it would be good to do really good chips with a Spanish dish to relate to it,” says chef and co-owner Ed McIlroy. “I didn’t even think about calling it patatas bravas.”
Like many UK chefs he makes a distinction between chips and fries. Chips, he says, “have got to be substantial, a proper size to them. Fries wouldn’t hold up here.” He’s right. His pudgy, crisp beef-fat-fried chips are served doused with a pair of sauces, a very garlicky aioli and a smoky, sweet tomato sauce; fries wouldn’t stand a