Steak fries are the worst, but these fat fries will make you a believer

Los Angeles Times

07-07-2025

I will never understand the allure of the fat French fry. Steak fries are contemptible. Wedges of bland starch with no crunch, like a mouthful of molded mashed potatoes. There is no amount of ketchup, ranch or aioli that can save thick fries from the lower depths of tuber hell. Just order a baked potato and be done with it.
Curly fries, when done correctly, are crisp through each coil. I'm never mad at a waffle fry.
The skinny fry has the potential to be a spud revelation. It's texturally superior to a wedge, with a more even ratio of crunch to fluff. Three skinny fries clumped together and dunked into your favorite condiment will always hit. A single fat fry could never.
For a long time, I held the firm belief that Chateau Marmont was home to the greatest French fries in all the land. They're served in a decorative silver cylinder meant to elevate, at least via the presentation, the humblest of hamburger sidekicks. The mountain of fries exudes an air of luxury, threatening to spill from the top, showered in Parmesan cheese and smelling vaguely of truffles. Truffle Parmesan fries ($17) in the sceniest of sceney Los Angeles hotels? I can feel you seething as I type this. I can hear the guffaw of annoyance that just escaped your mouth. I know — people feel strongly about French fries.
After years of pawing through orders of fries at Heavy Handed, République and a handful of other places around town, I no longer believe they are the best fries in Los Angeles, but they continue to hover near the top, made even more enjoyable with an ice-cold martini. They are worth enduring the slight chill from the two hosts posted as gatekeepers to the bar and restaurant. I don't hold a SAG card, and my social media follower count is far lower than what is acceptable, but please permit me to pass, sit and overpay for your very good French fries.
Also vying for the title of best French fries are the tallow fries from the new Happies Hand Made in the Arts District, named for the beef tallow the fries bathe in. They're long, golden sticks that resemble fine fingers — the sort of fries that appear to have a surface sheathed in an extra layer of speckled coating that provides a satisfying crunch with each bite. They're seasoned well with salt and pepper, well enough to skip the ketchup. But as our deputy Food editor Betty Hallock likes to say: It's not a French fry if you can't dip it in ketchup. Once again, people feel strongly about French fries and their condiments.
I recently stumbled on what could be the best French fry I've ever tasted at an Italian restaurant in the Arts District. It was like the world shifted into another universe where the thick fry crawled out of the depths of tuber hell and emerged triumphant.
If you never noticed fries on the Rossoblu menu, you'd be forgiven. Steve and Dina Samson's restaurant is known best for Steve's regional Italian cooking, built on his family's traditional Bolognese dishes, including stellar pasta. But if you read through to the bottom of the menu, you'll find the fries under the 'contorni' or sides section, listed as 'Apennine fries, triple-cooked, herbs, balsamic' ($14).
They're named for the fries Steve remembers eating as a kid in a small mountain village in the Apennines in southern Bologna.
'One time we just went to some outdoor restaurant and I had fries with balsamic vinegar, and it was like, 'Phew, this is mind blowing,'' he says. 'I was probably like 10 years old, but it stuck in my mind and I always wanted to do that.'
Steve's fries are shy of wedge territory, though I label anything wider than a quarter inch (about the width of a McDonald's fry) a fat fry. They're served in a heap in a bowl, the logs of potato annealed, shiny and splotched with balsamic vinegar. The surface of each fry resembles the rugged terrain of good fried chicken, jagged and almost shaggy in parts. Bits of fried rosemary and sage litter the top.
They're hot and crunchier than I expect for a fry with sizable girth, the exterior layer of potato as delicate and crisp as a chip. But it isn't just that outer layer that's crunchy. It's like the potatoes are fried from the inside out, with a crunch that permeates 90% of the fry's nearly hollow body and eventually relents to a fluffy core. There is no need to rummage around for a good one. They are all the good one.
Before you have time to process how mind-bogglingly excellent the fries are, you get a bite tinged with vinegar and your mouth is flooded with the sweet and sharp tang of balsamic.
With two bites, I became a fat fry believer. Or at the very least an Apennine fry believer.
After trying multiple varieties of potatoes, Steve settled on Kennebec potatoes, and only Kennebec potatoes, to make his fries.
'They haven't been consistently on our menu because it's been hard to keep them consistent,' Steve says. 'Sometimes our produce guy says it can be hard to get Kennebecs because In-N-Out uses so many of them. And then the way potatoes are farmed, it depends on the time of year and how long the potatoes have been stored.'
And even if Steve secures the Kennebecs, he won't know a batch is good until he's gone through the three-cook process to make them.
The potatoes are cut, rinsed and soaked overnight. They're laid flat on racks, then steamed in the oven. The fries rest in the walk-in cooler and dry out, then take their first dip in the fryer. Once the fries are cooked through, they go back on a rack and into the freezer. The potatoes are flash-fried at 375 degrees to order.
'I've heard that there are ways to see if they float or see if they are going to be good potatoes,' he says. 'If you can figure out a way to tell before you go through all the work. But we haven't figured out a way to know before the third cook whether they are good or not. There have been times during service where we have a new batch, and it's like, uh-oh, we can't serve these.'
Sometimes the potatoes absorb too much oil. Other times they fall apart in the fryer.
'Whenever we get a good batch of potatoes, it's such a good feeling,' he says. 'You feel like you've won something.'
With the recent relaunch of the restaurant's menu and a steady supply of Kennebecs, the fries are on again at Rossoblu.
'Things like fries are the hardest to do well because there are a lot of variables and everybody knows what a good fry is,' he says. 'You can't fake your way around a good fry.'
Though Steve intends to have the fries available whenever you visit, there are no guarantees. You may want to call ahead for the good fries.