A star, not a side: The baked potato is back in a big way

Slicing into creamy, tender, white flesh and browned, crispy skin, you might not immediately think of a baked potato as an indulgence. But as 2025 ends, this is where we are.

Often thought of as pedestrian, baked potatoes have also proven themselves to be the perfect canvas for, well, anything. Baked potatoes — or jacket potatoes, if you want to be a bit British about it — are trending, relegated to a “side” no longer. The new baked potato is the star of the show.

The baked potato has only gained trend status fairly recently. We started off the year in what I personally dubbed the era of the latke. Every seafood bar had a latke piled with tuna tartare, bearing dollops of cream and caviar. You can’t throw a rock (or a potato) in Philly without hitting some sort of fancy shellfish or tartare perched delicately upon a potato latke. The trend was relentless nationwide and inescapable here, from My Loup’s pastrami beef tartare served on latkes to Middle Child Clubhouse’s okonomiyaki latkes and Little Water’s peekytoe crab balanced on “hash browns” ... also known as latkes.

We have perhaps passed peak latke and moved onto another potato preparation. Baked-potato news has been populating my social media feeds, proffering both locally available spuds and unattainable ones.

There’s chef Ange Branca’s Mod Spuds, which puts a Malaysian-Philadelphian spin on English jacket potatoes. She offers toppings well beyond the usual spoonful of sour cream and scattering of shredded cheese — from a Philly cheesesteak loaded potato to one topped with Branca’s legendary beef rendang.

On TikTok, baked potatoes were buoyed by Nara Smith, who made a “jacket potato tutorial” for her 12.3 million followers. Her preparation of a baked potato, with narration in her husky, low voice while wearing couture, has spawned countless imitation videos. The U.K.-based business SpudBros has become a global brand with multiple locations, millions of followers, and food trucks thanks to viral success on TikTok.

Baked potatoes are also popping up on menus at restaurants and bars in ways one has never seen before, whether it’s Pietramala’s Japanese sweet potato with Buffalo sauce and cashew sour cream, or at the newly reopened Wine Dive (now on Sansom Street).

Wine Dive’s baked potato is an Idaho spud roughly the size of my Chihuahua, with crispy, deep brown skin and white flesh that emits plumes of steam when you slice into it through the mountain of sour cream, curls of cheddar, torn bits of bacon, and scallions.

This is not a vehicle for masterful tikka masalas or rendang. This is a thoroughly American baked potato. On Wednesdays, Wine Dive has bottomless, all-you-can-eat baked potatoes for $15.

It is as ridiculous as it sounds. Eat 10 baked potatoes and you get your photo on the wall and the promise of some very cool merch. No one has made it to 10. So far, the record has been seven potatoes.

It’s possible that the proliferation of baked potatoes is, like cabbage, a recession indicator. But like the latke, it may very well have fine-dining legs. Just let me know if you manage to eat 10 in one go.