The Potato Project

I thought I had met the ultimate potato lover, and married him. But then I spoke to Ksenia Karpenko, a young entrepreneur who took her fascination with potatoes and went on to open an eatery called, The Potato Project. I was just in pure amazement to come to acknowledgement that there was another mortal out there who is as dedicated as Mr L to the potato. Mr L has quite a fascinating theory to his potato (if you want to know what it is, we will need a serious discussion over a Gin & Tonic) and I was wondering if Ksenia Karpenko had one too. I was eager to find out.
So, when I was invited to a bloggers event for a potato feast, I accepted instantly. The blogger’s event also collaborated with Nix & Kix, a non-​alcoholic drink based on chilli. Co-​founders Julia and Kerstin started in the beverage industry because they wanted an alternative non-​alcoholic drink that was not bland or too sugary. Gathered on the same afternoon, we sampled a range of their drinks paired to the dishes from The Potato Project.
The Potato Project, located in Soho, grew on the concept of the jacket potato. There are the simple salted Cornish butter (£3.75), very 1970’s prawn and Bourbon Marie Rose sauce (£5.25), vegetarian option of the borlotti beans with mature cheddar cheese (£4.45) to the uncustomary jacket potato toppings of chilli beef ragu & blue cheese (£5.50), cornish brie & roast artichokes (£5.00) and beetroot & stracciatella (£5.50). Apart from the importance of good potatoes, Ksenia is also concerned about using quality ingredients in her food.
Ksenia Karpenko is passionate about eating well, using quality ingredients, and making sure you enjoy your meal too. That is why you will be glad to hear that there is dessert too! It was captivating listening to her speak about her childhood experience with growing potatoes and her challenges in running The Potato Project. She is humourous, confident and smart.
The Potato Project is small with a few bar seats and a largish communal table in the basement. The place mainly caters for takeaways.
My favourites were the salads and side dishes. But the most exciting for me was the dessert. I appreciated the amount of work and thought that has gone into the dish. It is quite challenging to come up with a potato based dessert and to plate it beautifully.
Overall, I thought the flavours and concept of delivering simple good food was great. I would have liked it more if the filling and sauces were just a little saucy to leave more jus for the jacket potato. The unconventional toppings to the jacket potatoes were great and there are many options for vegetarians.

This looked good on paper. But the potato was overbaked, had clearly been in the oven for days, and was served… warm. As was the sparse topping of chilli beef ragu with blue cheese. It felt like someone had badly reheated an old jacket potato they had made at home, rather clumsily. For £7, this is no gourmet potato and I left wishing I had stayed away. Flavour was ok, I make much better at home, easily :/

Defiantly one of the best places in London to get your spuds! A bit more pricey then your average jacket potato but you get so much more, this is defiantly a full meal rather then a snack. Toppings wise there’s a real variety, and the quality is very high. The potato itself is cooked perfectly, very soft and fluffy! Staff are very friendly and it has a nice relaxed atmosphere.

Winter. When the gentle drizzle clings to your brow and your hands stiffen with chill, you wil be glad of the queue that you are in that slightly snakes out of the door.
You will appreciate the company of your fellow man keeping you warm until you edge closer and closer towards the potato cooking furnaces at the front, until they evaporate the snow/​rain/​drizzle from your sodden ‘I just popped out for a potato, I didn’t need a brolly’ body.
Once the warm gladdening glow of the oven begins to see you warm and dry there is the option to either dash back to whatever studio you emerged from, via said snow/​rain/​drizzle, or you can prop yourself up on a table not big enough to house you and your (enormous) baked potato on. You’ll make friends quickly. Or not.
One thing I did like about the Potato Project was the Potato Ratio, the real estate of the potato to the amount of topping. It’s never nice to have pure potato unless it has topping on it, am I right? That’s where, if my eyes are bigger than my belly, (a rarity) it is my only signal to stop.
(My brain usually says) Halt! There is no more topping on this potato. Put your fork down.
(My mouth says) Oh wait, what! We’re stopping? We don’t need to stop, do we? I quite like the just-​the-​potato, potato part. I like it when that bit’s saved for last, but (hang on a minute) I never get to eat it *wonders why?*
(My brain says) Moowahahaha
(My mouth says) Yeah but you paid for it so, I’m gonna keep going.
–et cetera et cetera.
However, due to the perfect proportions of the sweet balsamicky beetroot and lush, fresh creamy goats curd topping, there was no need to leave any.
I like kitsch-​ness of the Potato Project; spuds decorating the windows and hung from the walls, I didn’t even mind what I immediately thought was a gastronomically glib menu of potato recipes. Sweet potato pie after your jacket potato sir? How about a side of potato salad, madam? I half-​expected to be asked. Or, do you want chips with that?
Without being slightly facetious myself, all that it’s missing is vodka. Well I suppose it’s a lunch spot? But what are suggestions for?
I only wonder however, what will happen when the weather warms up? Maybe they could rebrand it the ‘Darling Spuds of May’ and just serve potato salads instead but also because of my crippling FOMO and occasional dainty appetite, I like the idea of half potato servings.
–Dainty appetite who am I kidding, I just want all the toppings! Who doesn’t want one half of a baked potato with horseradish and caviar on it; a lá Joan Collins and the other half (as a good friend would call it) a ‘slaggy dinner’ of beans and cheese?

The idea is pretty good. Everyone loves some jacket potatoes and especially when today it’s 50% off! However the first impression was that the joint was way too hot inside it was like a burning oven!!! We had to stand at the door to cool down while we waited for our orders.
The menu has a lot of items and there are daily specials so I went for the Salmon Cream Cheese jacket potato (£7 full price). I’m not entirely convinced. The potato was baked nicely BUT the skin turned black completely. Also there are no seasonings apart from a big slab of salmon inside with cream cheese. The raw salmon was also being cooked by the potato so the bottom half of my salmon was more cooked than raw. I would not pay for this full price! Yes, it’s convenience as in you cooked the potato for me, slapped on a salmon and put on some cream cheese, but I could really do this at home and this does not deserve the gourmet price of £7!
Onto dessert, they have one only which is the sweet potato cheesecake. This is really nice, very very sweet tasting with some granola crumb at the top for texture but alas, the portion was so small that there is no chance I will come back to buy this little dinky cup for £2.75. I could pretty much get a whole cheesecake from tesco across the road for this price?
Non-​daily special baked potatos are at a more reasonable price of £5 (full price) — but no salad, and I do hope they have better seasonings for those other options, as otherwise, this place would be pretty disappointing.