Kumpir in the UK: what it is, how to order it, where to find it

What kumpir is

A huge floury potato, sometimes half a kilo, is baked until the skin is crisp, then split and the inside is worked with butter and grated kaşar until it is a smooth, rich mash still inside the skin. The customer then chooses from a counter of toppings: green and black olives, sweetcorn, pickled cucumber and red cabbage, Russian salad, sliced sausage, bulgur salad, couscous, mushrooms, hot dog, and the two sauces without which no kumpir is complete, ketchup and mayonnaise. The result is a full meal eaten with a fork from a foil tray, and it is a Turkish invention with no ancestry beyond the baked potato; the Ortaköy stalls have sold it since the 1980s.

Kumpir versus a jacket potato

A British jacket potato is cut open and topped. A kumpir is mashed inside the skin with butter and cheese first, which turns the whole potato into filling, and then topped generously and without restraint. The butter and cheese stage is what makes it Turkish; a kumpir without it is just a jacket with olives. A standard order has six or seven toppings; the Ortaköy purist takes everything.

How to judge it

The potato should be very large and floury, the mash inside properly worked with plenty of butter and real kaşar, hot enough to melt the cheese. The toppings should be fresh and the pickles sharp. A kumpir that arrives cold in the middle, or with the potato left in lumps, was rushed. It is a filling meal and should be priced like one, not like a snack.

Where in the UK it is done well

Turkish cafés in Harringay, Enfield and Edmonton, and Turkish stalls at London's street food markets, make kumpir, and it has appeared in Manchester and Birmingham. The ranking below counts restaurants in our directory whose name signals kumpir.