Chips off the old block: A top-notch chef's take on a timeless classic

What do "designer" fish and chips taste like?

Like any good son, I think my mum's fish and chips were better than anything a celebrity chef could ever cook. That's what I always told her, anyway.

And, back in England recently, I was able to compare the memory of my late mum's Friday-night classic with fish and chips "by" Marco Pierre White.

I'd never given much thought to White and I'd assumed he was French, but it turns out that he was born in the same hospital as me and lived just up the road from our house in Leeds, Yorkshire. His parents met in a pub where my grandad used to drink (although, to be fair, it would be hard to find a pub where my grandad didn't drink) and his family used to visit Harry Ramsden's, a famous local chip shop that eventually spawned a restaurant chain.

Now White runs Wheeler's Fish & Chips in Dover, Kent, and I popped in one lunchtime for a battered haddock with Koffman fries (£11.10, about $21.50). I assumed Koffman was a type of potato, but it's actually the name of a French chef, who markets triple-blanched and double-fried chips that are spiced according to an inevitable "secret recipe".

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And Koffman fries were fantastic. They were crunchy on the outside and soft inside, and lacked the tendency to clump often found in British chip-shop chips, which can sometimes give the impression they are seeking to return to happier times when they were all part of the same potato.

The meal came with meaty marrowfat peas, which were the only cooked peas I have ever enjoyed in my life.