McCain and Alison Hammond open CHIP, a free four-day chip restaurant in London Fields with a National Treasure serve

Key Takeaways

• McCain has teamed up with Alison Hammond to launch CHIP, a restaurant dedicated entirely to chips.

• The menu runs from 90s favourites such as truffle oil and balsamic glaze to TikTok flavours including matcha, gochujang and pickle vinegar.

• Hammond's signature serve, The National Treasure, combines garlic butter, hot honey and Everything Bagel seasoning.

• CHIP is open at 2 Westgate Street, London Fields, from 5 to 8 November between 11.30am and 7pm, with free entry, chips and merchandise, subject to availability, and walk-ins welcome.

McCain has opened CHIP, a restaurant dedicated entirely to chips, in London Fields with Alison Hammond, and everything on the menu is free for the four days it is open. The pop-up runs from 5th to 8th November at 2 Westgate Street, where the toppings read like a history of British food fads, taking in truffle oil and balsamic glaze at one end and matcha and gochujang at the other. Hammond has given the project its headline dish in The National Treasure, which brings together garlic butter, hot honey and Everything Bagel seasoning on a portion of McCain chips.

The launch has been billed as offering more than 1,000 flavour combinations, which is a generous way of describing a restaurant where every dish is the same thing with something different on top. Entry, chips and merchandise are all free, subject to availability, and walk-ins are welcome, so nobody needs a reservation to find out what matcha, miso and yuzu do to a potato.

McCain's CHIP restaurant serves free chips and Alison Hammond's National Treasure in London Fields until 8 November

CHIP is open from 11.30am to 7pm each day between Thursday 5th and Sunday 8th November, and visitors can order one of the combinations already put together or create their own from a selection of toppings inspired by food trends. The menu sorts those trends roughly by era, beginning with nostalgic 90s favourites such as truffle oil and balsamic glaze before moving on to TikTok obsessions including matcha, cinnamon swirl, gochujang and pickle vinegar. Each one is sprinkled, drizzled or dusted onto McCain chips, so the product stays fixed while the toppings wander through three decades of British eating habits.

Four named serves sit alongside Hammond's dish, and each is pitched at a different kind of diner. Pomme de Terre is the 90s option, combining truffle oil, porcini mushroom dust and rosemary sea salt, while Fall Fries brings together pumpkin spice, salted caramel and a cinnamon sugar swirl for what McCain calls a millennial autumn dream. The Po-TEA-to is a Japanese inspired mix of matcha, miso and yuzu, and Chip-kle pairs pickle vinegar with garlic butter and Himalayan pink salt as a nod to the internet's pickle obsession, which seems to have reached its natural home on a chip.

Hammond's contribution is presented as a serve dedicated to the queen of daytime TV, and her statement leans into the fact that she is better known for presenting than for cooking. "Honestly, is there anything better than a good chip?! I absolutely LOVE them, and they're always a winner in our house," she said. "Now, I might not be winning any awards for my cooking, but when it comes to serving up a cracking portion of chips, I know what I'm doing!" Her role is to make the invitation feel friendly and to give a free pop-up a reason to appear in entertainment coverage as well as food listings, and she signs off by urging people to "try a chip you've never tried before".

Laura Koscik, marketing director at McCain, framed the restaurant as a way of refreshing something familiar, saying, "Chips have been a constant on our plates through decades of changing food culture." She added that the company wants to give chips "a fresh role in modern food culture" and is "inviting people to rediscover their love of chips", which explains why a menu of cult flavours has been built around a product that most people associate with a weeknight oven tray.

McCain follows its 2017 Roastaurant on Brick Lane and 2026 Mr. Chippy van with a restaurant for chips

CHIP is not the first time McCain has given a freezer staple a London address, because in December 2017 the brand opened the Roastaurant at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. That pop-up promised over 100,000 possible roast combinations, a 6m sq platter of roast potatoes and a gravy microbrewery, with tickets at £7.50 for a sit-down roast or £5 for unlimited potatoes, and it found room on the menu for pigeon with onion rings and chocolate gravy. The formula has barely changed nine years on, since an enormous number of combinations is still doing the headline work, although CHIP removes the ticket price and adds a famous face.

The closer precedent arrived this spring, when McCain sent out Mr. Chippy, an ice cream van serving hot Crispy French Fries dunked in soft serve, first in Brighton and then at Lusty Glaze Beach in Newquay. McCain's research claimed that one in four Brits (24.8%) would be up for trying the pairing, and Koscik said the free treat was made to "spark a proper 'love it or hate it' debate". In May 2025 the brand had also recreated Rodin's The Thinker at Battersea Power Station with Vicky Pattison to ponder the chip against crisp debate for its Vibes snacks, so the company has now spent some eighteen months arguing about potatoes in public places.

There is a commercial reason for keeping chips in front of people, since McCain has just had a difficult year in the UK. Revenues at its UK arm fell 5.8% to £752.8m in the year to 30 June 2025, pre-tax profits dropped 31% to £68.3m after a poor potato harvest and higher costs, and own label competition contributed to McCain selling 6.5 million fewer packs. Birds Eye has also moved into frozen chips and wedges, which gives shoppers another branded option in the freezer aisle.

Eating habits give the format some logic too, as loaded fries topped a Bidfood list, with 55% of consumers naming them among the topped and loaded dishes they are most likely to engage with over the next year or two. CHIP takes that restaurant habit and shows it back to shoppers using a product they can buy for their own freezer, which is the point of a pop-up that gives away its entire menu. It follows a similar route to Bold Bean Co opening The Beanery on Greek Street, where a brand usually met on a supermarket shelf opened a short-lived deli so people could taste finished dishes.

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