M&S: Collection Extra Virgin Olive Oil Serrano Ham Crisps

*Spoiler alert* My crisp of 2025 so far….

Sometimes you stumble across a crisp that doesn’t shout for your attention, but rather clears its throat politely and gestures toward something a little more refined.

That’s what we’ve got here with M&S’s Collection Extra Virgin Olive Oil Serrano Ham Crisps — a title almost as long as the tasting experience.

Atypically thin for a British crisp

First things first: they’re thin. Almost paper-thin, but not so brittle that you lose half of them in the bag, but definitely more delicate than my usual preference.

And yet — and this is key — they carry that thinness with intent. You’re not left wanting. Instead, you get something almost elegant, crisp in both texture and concept.

Olive oil leads the way

The olive oil leads the show. And not just in a “we fried it in something fancier” kind of way — you can taste it.

It’s grassy, bold, and warm, not greasy. This isn’t just a carrier fat; it’s the starring role.

The ham, meanwhile, is restrained. Not smoky or overly salted. It sits lightly on the tongue — it reminds me explicitly of sitting at the nicer end of tapas bar in Granada with a plate of Jamón Ibérico where all you have are slivers of fatty ham dressed in oil, and nowhere else to hide.

Less is definitely more here

There’s a remarkable lightness here. Not in a diet-y, calorie-counting sense, but in the way these crisps feel.

You could eat ten and not feel bogged down. You’d want to eat ten. But what’s unusual — what makes them stand out — is that they slow you down. There’s a complexity to them that makes you pause, reflect, maybe even hold one up and look at it like a wine taster sniffing a glass. It’s not often crisps ask you to think. These do.

Would I buy them again? Absolutely. Probably not for the casual Friday night film snack. But for a small bowl beside a glass of something dry and Spanish, they’d be perfect.

Quality control

For a hand-cooked crisp, you typically expected a few rough edges and browned ends.

But these crisps maintained a startlingly high level of quality control. Every crisp an even colour and quality, but not in too boring and generic a way.

The promise of ‘fried in small batches’ is genuinely upheld here. No spud goes unloved.

The consistently high quality of M&S: Collection Extra Virgin Olive Oil Serrano Ham Crisps

Pounding the wallet

I think I love them. But they cost £3.45 for a 125g bag. That is staggeringly high in the world of supermarket own brand crisps.

In their defence, you certainly don’t addictively or mindlessly devour them. They lasted two sittings between two of us savouring them mindfully, so with that in mind they scrape a 6 on value for money,

They cost as much as a half bottle of wine. But are worth it.