London now has its first crisp restaurant: HipChips

December 01, 2016

Source

HipChips / Timeout London / Ragged Edge

From TIMEOUT Blog London, PotatoPro learned that London now has its first 'Crisp Restaurant'. This paradise for potato (chips) lovers is located in Soho and is called Hipchips.

This name is of course a recipe for confusion in the United Kingdom where they call the food we refer to at PotatoPro as french Fries Chips and what we call Chips they call Crisps. Confused already? Anyhow, they sell Crisps. Otherwise we would not have mentioned them here either, since there is nothing new about a (Fish and) Chips restaurant in London. HipChips officially opened last week

Much of the design and branding for this crisps restaurant was done by Branding Agency Ragged Edge.

Here are some impressions they offer us:

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Hipchips: the Interior

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Hipchips: The Chips! and how they are offered

And they have beautiful, potato chips pictures on their facebook page! Definitely not to be watched when you are hungry...

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These are the HipChips savoury options, potato chips and dips

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If you are into sweet flavours, there are several options for dips too. They are served with these Cinnamon Sugar Potato Crisps

For the perspective of a regular visitor, we go back to Isabelle Aron from Time Out London and note some of her observations:

There's a crisp conveyor belt

The HipChips crisp conveyor belt

"Sadly it wasn't actually switched on when we went down, but, y'know, we got the picture - crisps come on, crisps come off."

There are a LOT of different types of potatoes out there

“The crisps might look like those posh vegetable crisps, but they're actually all made from different types of potatoes with fancy names, like the highland burgundy or the shetland back, which is officially registered as a 'forgotten food', apparently..”

The crisps are savoury AND sweet

“Though not at the same time, thankfully. You get to pick your own potato and then choose if you want to go savoury or sweet, which come dipped in cinnamon sugar.”

“There's also a selection of sweet and savoury dips, including baba ghanoush, spicy katsu curry, smokey cheese fondue, chocolate salted caramel, chocolate praline mousse and peanut butter and jam.”

They literally only sell crisps

“And booze. And coffee. But if you were hoping for something else to eat alongside your crisps, there's nothing for you here.”

“A small box of crisps plus two dips costs £4.50, a medium box with three dips is £6.75, or you can go HAM and get a large box with six dips (like we did) for £11.50.”

“So if you're just after a packet of ready salted crisps to eat with your sandwich, you're better off going to the cornershop. But if you fancy crisps for dinner (or lunch, or breakfast - sure, why not?), then you will be in deep-fried heaven. It ain't cheap, but it is TASTY.”

“Although we're still a bit dubious about those sweet crisps..”

Finally, for the heritage potato lovers: these are the heritage potatoes you can select for your crisps, according to the menu: