{"id":98995,"date":"2026-08-07T05:16:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T05:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/98995\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T05:16:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T05:16:34","slug":"the-london-restaurant-serving-beef-tartare-with-irish-crisps-you-scoop-it-up-with-a-tayto-directly-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/98995\/","title":{"rendered":"The London restaurant serving beef tartare with Irish crisps: \u2018You scoop it up with a Tayto directly\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tucked into a busy corner of Broadgate near Liverpool Street in London<\/a>, Fitzgerald\u2019s restaurant offers Irish<\/a> customers an unusual taste<\/a> of home \u2013 a classic beef tartare served with a side of Tayto<\/a> crisps. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of our best-selling dishes, actually,\u201d says executive chef at Fitzgerald\u2019s Esteve Prats Grau, who was behind adding Tayto (the northern variety) to the restaurant\u2019s menu. <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, tartare is a classic, classic dish, you know, so I thought it was a must to have it … yet tartare is quite a soft dish … so it needs something crispy and salty,\u201d says Prats Grau. <\/p>\n

The Barcelona native had used other types of crisps before in canapes but, given that Fitzgerald\u2019s is an Irish-American fusion restaurant, he wanted to try something more authentic for this dish of seasoned raw beef. He had come across the Tayto crisp in London and decided to give them a go.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day I just tried them. I bought the Taytos. I did the dish, and it was perfect,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are crispy. They are super salty, and when you eat them with the tartare it makes an explosion of flavours in the mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tayto, made in Tandragee, Co Armagh, have another function in Prats Grau\u2019s dish too \u2013 the tartare is not served with a knife and fork but rather customers are advised to \u201cjust scoop it up with a Tayto directly\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not messy, but it\u2019s playful, you know?\u201d says Prats Grau, adding that the dish is great for sharing. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou put it in the middle of the table, everybody grabs their Taytos and eats it as it comes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EsteveEsteve Prats Grau, executive chef at Fitzgerald\u2019s restaurant in London <\/p>\n

Fitzgerald\u2019s, which alongside The Horsemen pub forms an Irish-American clubhouse, has only been open since April but Prats Grau says he has already noticed the surprised reactions of Irish customers coming to the restaurant and seeing that Tayto is being served. The beef tartare dish is a starter at the restaurant and is priced at \u00a315.50 (\u20ac18).<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are surprised, they cannot believe they will find it here in London. They\u2019re like, \u2018Wow, it\u2019s from our country\u2019,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0You\u2019re taking the crisp, right? How Tayto in the North are different from Tayto in the SouthOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But what about the key question in the age-old debate? Why did the chef choose northern Tayto over southern Tayto? Prats Grau insists that his decision was made on pragmatic grounds, \u201cmainly because of the suppliers\u201d. It\u2019s \u201cnot that easy\u201d to source Tayto from the Republic, he says.<\/p>\n

The chef, who has a background in Michelin-starred restaurants, reckons kitchens sometimes \u201coverthink\u201d their dishes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey over-touch them, they try to go crazy \u2013 in this restaurant we did the opposite,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tucked into a busy corner of Broadgate near Liverpool Street in London, Fitzgerald\u2019s restaurant offers Irish customers an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[27,744,41872],"class_list":["post-98995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-london","tag-restaurant","tag-tayto"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117052531344479950","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}