Mashed potatoes at Fancy Restaurant | Cup of joe
By Kelsey Miller | Published: 2025-10-29 16:44:00 | Source: Cup of Jo
What is your favorite style of mashed potatoes? When I make mashed potatoes at home, I’m a fan of the skin (aka “dirty” mashed potatoes) — partly because I like the texture, and partly because I don’t like the peel. But for me favorite Mashed potato style, there’s no doubt: fine-dining restaurant mashed potatoes. You know what I mean — the kind that comes with a side of a slice of poached salmon or white asparagus that costs more than your cell phone bill. The super creamy kind that makes you stop mid-bite and say, “How do they even do this?”
“Butter,” the chef explains. Matthew Ryle In his new cookbook, French classics. “And a lot of it.” Plus, there are some other tricks — like baking the potatoes, rather than boiling them — to get a “premium, restaurant-quality mash.” Here, Matthew shares his recipe for pommes puree.
Pumice purée
from French Classics: Easy, elevated dishes to cook at homeWritten by Matthew Ryle
To mash dry potatoes
6 large potatoes, preferably Maris Piper or Yukon Gold
Salt, ideally rock salt
To finish
1kg (4 cups tightly packed) mashed dry potatoes (see above)
About 500 grams (4 sticks) of butter
About 200 ml (1 cup) of whole milk
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground white pepper
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F for standard oven, or 400°F for convection).
Prick the potatoes with a small knife; This will prevent them from exploding in the oven. Place them on a baking tray on a layer of rock salt (any salt will work, but cheap rock salt works best and you can reuse it next time you make the mash). Bake for 60 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
Cut the potatoes in half after taking them out of the oven so that the steam can escape. Remove the cooked potatoes from the peel, then pass them through Potato strainer.
Place the weighed dry potato mash in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Cut half the weight of the butter into small cubes and add it slowly to the potatoes, stirring with a drop of milk to prevent the butter from separating. You may not need all the milk; You just use it to bring the mash to the desired consistency and help get that butter inside. Add fine salt and ground white pepper to taste.
Optional: Pass the finished mash through a fine-hole sieve. This final stage is not 100% necessary, but it ensures a beautifully lump-free puree.
Thank you very much, Matthew!
Note: More potatoes, just because we like them:
* How to make English jacket potatoes
* Potato salad trick
*What’s the best part of a snack of all time? this
*The perfect crispy baked potato
* 8 mashed potatoes
* Three strategic appetizers for a dinner party
* Social anxiety and the power of potato chips
(Photos by Patricia Nevin. Excerpted from French Classics: Easy, Elevated Dishes to Cook at Home by Matthew Ryle, on sale now from Bloomsbury Publishing. Copyright © 2025 by Matthew Ryle. All rights reserved.)
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