Are these £33 crisps really worth it? SCARLETT DARGAN crunches the data

Are these £33 crisps really worth it? SCARLETT DARGAN crunches the data By Scarlett Dargan For You Magazine Published: 03:01 EDT, 24 August 2024 | Updated: 03:01 EDT, 24 August 2024 e-mail View comments Toklas, a Mediterranean restaurant just off London ’s Strand, is nearly every food critic’s favourite hotspot. Regular guest Nigella Lawson says she leaves with a ‘smile in my heart’ whenever she visits; food writer Marina O’Loughlin has a ‘blazing infatuation’ with the place. The menu is a roll call of luxurious dishes: rabbit saltimbocca with Amalfi lemon; wild sea bass crudo; native lobster that travels from coast to plate within 15 hours.

Yet according to head chef Chris Shaw, ‘All anyone wants to talk about are the crisps.’ He is referring to Toklas’s homemade crisps, served as a £9 starter with mussel escabeche. ‘It’s only meant to be a snack before the meal,’ Shaw explains, ‘but I’ve lost count of the people who walk up after eating, say, wild sea bass, only to talk about how amazing the crisps are.

People, especially British people, love crisps.’ The chef is on to something. From restaurants to fancy department stores, bougie crisps are having a moment.

Oxfordshire foodie pub The Harcourt Arms serves homemade lattice crisps with its beef tartare. At swanky cocktail bar Seed Library in London’s Shoreditch, £15 cocktails come with Wotsits accompanied by caviar. Meanwhile, at Gordon Ramsay ’s Savoy Grill, executive head chef Arnaud S.