Food & Drinks
Humble and Fried, Chips Are the Hot Dish at Fancy London Restaurants
From fine dining rooms to buzzy French bistros, unassuming thick-cut fries are now the star.
Bouchon Racine features chips, not frites, on the very French menu.
Photographer: Francis Augusto for Bloomberg BusinessweekIt’s a feel good story people love: The local hero becomes a star.
So it is with 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.