‘British people’s eyes light up’ at this luscious take on a chip butty

Milquetoast has always been something of a love letter to the British comfort cuisine of co-owner George Curtis’ youth growing up in Shropshire, and then early adulthood working hospitality jobs in the south of England.

It makes sense, then, that it has a very, very good chip sandwich on the menu.

“George has fond recollections of working in gastropubs and engaging with that traditional English food,” Milquetoast head chef Oliver Chia says. “Just those really romantic countryside, bucolic memories.

“So, he really, really loves a good chip butty.”

First, though, what is Milquetoast?

Milquetoast is a word that means a timid or feeble person (the Oxford’s definition, not ours). But it’s also a Brisbane wine bar set inside a CBD garage that opened off Elizabeth Street in 2024.

It plays like the rumpus room of your adult dreams, Curtis and co-owner James Horsfall filling the space with vintage timber tables, and leather and velvet chairs and bar stools.

A bar and open kitchen runs down one side of the venue. It’s here that Chia oversees a menu that celebrates and elevates classic British comfort food. Expect classics such as devilled eggs, spice-bag quail and smoked eel (with salt and vinegar crisps, of course).

What’s been there since the beginning of 2025, though, is a chip butty that, if not quite a viral sensation, is pretty close.

Milquetoast’s chip butty

A British comfort classic it may be, but making a very good chip butty is difficult. All that potato! All that bread! It’s easy for it to slip into claggy carb-on-carb crime.

Chia reckons the correct chip-to-sauce ratio is key.

“It’s obviously a lot of carbs, so having something to cut through that and match with the chip is pretty important,” he says.

There are also many types of bread. And, of course, many kinds of potato that can be cooked a variety of ways.

At Milquetoast, the chefs use Tasmanian Dutch Cream potatoes sliced very thin, soaked in water, drained and then layered into a pave. The pave is baked for two hours, then pressed and cooled overnight.

“It’s a two-day process to make maybe 50 servings,” Chia says. “Sometimes we’ve sold 200 in a week. That’s 10 kilograms of potatoes.”

Then the chefs whip out the ruler to cut the pave into cubes that measure five centimetres by four centimetres by two centimetres.

“It’s such a simple dish that we really want those cuts to be clean to make it look super flush and sexy.”

After all that, the bread is dead simple: Tip Top Super Thick White with the crusts removed.

“We know how to make white bread, but it’s not going to be as good as what they produce,” Chia says.

Finally, there’s that all-important sauce – in this case a leek aioli spiked with Taiwanese pepper salt, liquorice root, and black and white pepper. It’s slathered just thick enough inside the sandwich, with a cave-aged cheese custard on the side for dipping.

Is this the best chip butty in Brisbane?

It’s the best we’ve tried, anyway. Don’t get us wrong – this is elevated food that’s very different to a chip sanger from the local fish and chipper. But, importantly, it still captures that spirit (of the British version, at least).

It’s in the beautiful potato pave that’s airy and crisp but still packs that luscious texture of a Dutch cream. It’s in the silken aioli with its lovely sharpness, which acts as a through-line for the whole sandwich. And it’s in that soft bread that couches the whole thing – you might wonder why the chefs don’t opt for something custom-made to their specs, but this is perfect for purpose.

“British people will come through and you see their eyes light up when they see a chip butty,” Chia says. “Then you bring it out and they’re dubious because it looks different. But they try it and they’re usually, like, ‘This is awesome.’ It’s recognisable to them [in taste], but they’re usually pretty blown away.”

Where to get it

Milquetoast’s chip butty is $16. You can find it at 199 Elizabeth Street in the city – look for the laneway opposite the InterContinental Brisbane.