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What is your double dip etiquette? Do you dip your crisps twice (or more) or just the one time, does it depend on who you’re with? Unsurprisingly this is one of the first thoughts that ran through our minds as we placed our order at HIPCHIPS in London’s Soho district.
Although HIPCHIPS has been a prominent feature on Old Crompton Street for about a year, we at Vada dropped in for the first time to try out their new autumnal dips. The brand has introduced a variety of seasonal sweet and savoury options, as part of its continually evolving menu. We chose to stick to the latter, as crisps for a Thursday night dinner is one thing, but “dessert” for dinner, well…we didn’t have that traumatic a day to warrant sugar coated crisps and chocolate dips.
HIPCHIPS at its core, sells crisps and dips. Having tried its product it is clear that choice of potato is everything. The company uses five varieties (including Highland Burgundy for red, and Salad Blue for a blue hue) resulting in a range of vibrant, delicious and distinctive crisps. With the owner’s aim of creating the best crisps in the world, we think they’re doing rather well.
The product offering allows customers to choose a size (small for £4.50, medium for £6.75 or large for £11.50) each with a proportion of crisps and number of dips. We tried a large including 6 dips and is ample for two sharing. Customers are free to choose their selection of dips, and the food is presented in specially designed boxes (reminiscent of popcorn boxes from an 80’s cinema), which is either brought to your table or prepared for a take-out – afternoon snack in the office anyone?
Now for the fun bit, choosing your dips. The favourites from choices were smokey cheese fondue with pickled red onion – because who doesn’t like cheese, beetroot and lemongrass marmalade with creme fraiche for its colour and fresh, sweet flavour, and some mild but tasty Katsu curry. And from the new Autumnal offering, we demolished the Hell Fire Pumpkin with Black Cheese Whip. At this point the double dipping commenced immediately. A quick check confirmed neither of us minded and this continued throughout our dining experience sometimes up to four dips to ensure every square inch of crisp surface area was covered. It may appear that the crisp to dip ratio is slightly in favour of potatoes but we found sufficient amount of dip and some leftover afterwards.
For those who do want to indulge in the sweet offering of crisps coated in sugar and cinnamon, the October range of dips includes toffee apple and chocolate peanut butter pie to a cider caramel whip and a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie dough dip.
HIPCHIPS is located at 49 Old Compton Street, London, W1D 6HL
HIPCHIPS is open from midday until at least 10pm every evening. For more information or to order a delivery, visit hipchipslondon.com.
