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There are chips. Then there are these chips. Sourced directly from a Gippsland farmer, every spud is hand-cut, double-fried and served with salt, love and pride.

We’re at Northern Soul, a colourful St Kilda store that celebrates British and Irish takeaway culture. English and Irish eating habits tend to get a bad rap, but this cheery chip shop aims to take your preconceptions, smother them in mushy peas, and wash them down with Vimto, a fruity soft drink with a cult following.

Speaking of cult dishes, come on Thursday or Friday to line up for a Spice Bag, a version of loaded fries eaten throughout the British Isles but given this cheeky moniker by the Irish.

It’s a flavour cacophony: chips are tossed in a secret seasoning heavy on five spice, charred with wok-fried capsicum, onion, chilli and chicken nuggets, and served with roux-based curry sauce and prawn crackers.

It’s a nod to the traditions of Chinese-owned chippers in Britain and Ireland and, like all the best over-the-top takeaways, the experience begins with urgent bliss and ebbs to what-have-I-done torpor. That is to say, the Spice Bag is perfect.

Northern Soul buys 850 kilograms of potatoes a week, adjusting the variety as sugar and starch levels shift through the seasons. So it’s spud-centric, yes, but there’s more. The name of the shop and the swirly design point to Northern Soul music and dance, an underground English scene that flourished in the late 1960s.

Dish names refer to key nightclubs: Wigan Casino is an extra-crunchy hake and chips. Twisted Wheel was a club in Manchester, here it’s a battered banana blossom. The Golden Torch – a club in Tunstall and a bespoke Irish pork sausage – is painstakingly battered. The All Nighter is a chip butty with lashings of
butter melting out of a squishy roll.

In case you thought you weren’t in Melbourne any more, there’s an epically crunchy potato cake, too.

Like all the best over-the-top takeaways, the experience begins with urgent bliss and ebbs to what-have-I-done torpor.

Owned by Mancunian chip fans Jess Tosh and Joe Grimshaw, Northern Soul applies fine dining principles to fast food. An obsession with provenance, quality, method and empathetic service is evident throughout.

Tosh trained as an interior designer but she’s always been obsessed with food. Aged 15, she wrote to Mr Underhills, a Michelin-starred restaurant, asking to do work experience and ended up cooking alongside top chefs for three years.

Northern Soul kicked off as a food truck during the pandemic; the shop opened in 2021 and quickly became a hub for expats and locals, a feast of accents as well as takeaway. The truck will soon live again, repurposed as Spice Van and parked behind the shop, serving spicy cocktails, seasoned fries and an extra sprinkling
of takeaway culture.