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Please note, The Potato Project has now closed. Time Out Food editors, December 2018.
The jacket potato. A meal so unpretentious, it makes chips with curry sauce seem exotic. Even those who cannot boil an egg can put a potato in an oven until its skin goes crisp and its middle steams itself into what comfort would taste like if it weren't an abstract noun. Which ought to make it a foolish thing to base a business on; too basic, too easy, too obvious. But The Potato Project promises to take spuds up a notch, offering middle-class toppings such as roasted artichoke, smoked ham hock and salted ricotta (not all at once).
The pleasingly steamy little café – mostly focused on takeaway trade but with a few seats for those wanting to eat from a plate – was packed thanks to a queue of hungry carb-loaders. Our tatties were filled to order but pre-cooked, which did rather compromise their crisp outside but of course meant the wait was a few minutes, rather than a few hours.
Disappointingly, the menu sounds better than it tastes. That ham hock came with cheddar and piccalilli – all good flavours, just not enough of them. Chilli beef ragu and blue cheese had the opposite problem: the con carne, though piled high, was bland and fire-less. But the spuds are cheap as, well, chips. Most of the menu will leave you with change from a fiver, making these some of the cheapest eat-in bellyfuls you’ll find in W1. Buy one, get your 3pm afternoon slump free.