No ifs, only butties: This Melbourne chip butty is a carb-on-carb crowd-pleaser

Simple pleasures don’t come much simpler than the chip butty: hot chips sandwiched between soft white bread. Stupidly easy to throw together, the British delicacy is a carb-on-carb crowd-pleaser. So why, then, is it so hard to find on menus around Melbourne?

“There are a lot of sandwiches out at the moment that have a lot going on, and everyone’s making them massive,” says Tori Bicknell, chef-owner of Glory Us’ Strathmore andFitzroy North cafes.

“I think people underestimate the simplicity of nostalgic food.”

Bicknell grew up on her British mother’s chip butties, dunked into a bowl of HP sauce. The “super popular” sandwich has been off the Glory Us menu for a little while, but it’s back just in time for Good Food’s Chip Month – and for this edition of Sandwich Watch.

The bread

It starts with slices so fresh that they take your fingerprints when you pick them up. Bicknell uses white tin loaf from Noisette bakery, which “has to be fresh every day”. It’s sealed with unsalted, cultured butter as soon as it hits the board, so it doesn’t dry out.

The chips

“When I’m having them on the side, I like my chips to be thick, greasy and as crisp as possible,” says Bicknell. “But when I’m eating them in a chip sandwich, I like them to retain some moisture [from the sauce] so you’ve got this crispy-chewy amalgamation.”

She uses Edgell Supa Crunch frozen chips, which are air-fried to give the butty a less oil-logged feel. They’re tossed in a house-made, secret-recipe chicken salt that’s completely plant-based (you can easily swap the butter for Nuttelex to make it vegan friendly).

Somewhere between shoestring and thick-cut, the chips are painstakingly stacked on the buttered bread, creating four or so layers, and the perfect cross-section.

The sauce

What binds the butty together is house-made HP sauce, squirted onto both pieces of bread in a smiley face (to subconsciously spread joy). The sauce is a labour of love, taking three days to make. It’s deeply savoury but a little sweet too, with the vinegary hit you need for a sanga full of spuds.

The butty isn’t crunch-on-crunch, with the chips softening as they cosy up to each other and the sauce soaks through, giving it that “crispy-chewy” vibe.

Extra sauce comes in a dipping bowl, alongside another filled with tangy pickle rounds.

How do I get one?

The chip butty ($19) is available on Glory Us’ regular menu at 73 Reid Street, Fitzroy North, and sporadically on the specials board at 62-64 Woodland Street, Strathmore.

Five other fried-potato-filled sangas to try

For a classic chip butty, there’s Northern Soul Chip Shop in St Kilda, doing it with curry sauce; Cerberus Beach House, from its kiosk overlooking Half Moon Bay; and Northcote Fish & Chips. Roving food truck Dimmie Den serves hand-cut potato cakes in sesame-seed-crusted rolls. And Gopi Ka Chatka, with multiple locations, is a go-to for Indian vada pav: a spiced potato patty stuffed in a white roll, with powerhouse dipping sauces.

This is the latest instalment of Sandwich Watch, a column dedicated to the Melbourne sandwiches you need to know about.