The retro-deliciousness of the devilled egg

There is an egg for every occasion: poached and served on crunchy toast in the morning; for a summer evening, a chorizo frittata. But of all the ways to eat eggs, my favourite is the most fussy: devilled, the art of scooping out hard-boiled eggs and re-stuffing them with a jazzed-up yolk mixture.

You might remember devilled eggs from sad ’70s buffets. Perhaps you have memories of shop-bought egg mayonnaise “deli filler”. Forget all that: the devilled egg has a new groove. Next month, Paris restaurant Mimosa will make its UK debut at The Langham hotel with five varieties: traditional, trout eggs with tarragon, poutargue, caviar and black truffle. The restaurant takes its name in part from oeufs mimosa, the French version of the delicacy, and advises enjoying its eggs as part of a sharing plate. “The different flavours are inspired by the richness of French Riviera cuisine and our desire to surprise,” says Benjamin Patou, CEO of Moma, Mimosa’s restaurant group.

At Camille in Borough Market, eggs are served with slices of smoked eel. Chef Seldon Curry of Dorset restaurant The Seaside Boarding House has been developing a ramen version. And New York’s Lure Fishbar adds crispy oysters and pickled chilli to theirs.

A devilled egg can be whatever you want it to be

A devilled egg can be whatever you want it to be, but the mixture typically involves paprika, mayonnaise and some sort of hot sauce. Tom Cenci, executive chef at Nessa, Mortimer House Kitchen and Yasmin, favours sriracha. At In Horto, near London Bridge, Spenser Genesy adds eight shakes of Tabasco. The spicy mixture is blitzed with a hand blender – add a splash of boiling water to smooth it out – and squeezed into halved egg whites with a piping bag. I like to stack my mixture high like the eggs at Félix Cocktails et Cuisine in Charleston. Others add extravagant toppings (see the trout roe and Espelette pepper devilled eggs at Montrose in Edinburgh).

The first devilled eggs, which can be traced back to ancient Rome, were boiled and served with spicy sauces. The commercialisation of mayonnaise in the early 20th century led them to become richer and creamier. Great mayonnaise is the secret to the modern devilled egg: take a leaf out of London institution St John’s’ book and make your own and then tailor your dish using different flavours. Peckham restaurant Levan adds an “umami bomb” of miso, while Solis chefs Ana Gonçalves and Zijun Meng add a salsa golf (a Latin-American Marie Rose) and serve their eggs upside down. “In Uruguay, huevos rellenos are usually stuffed with a tuna and white sauce mixture,” explains Gonçalves.      

The return of devilled eggs chimes with a resurgence of retro food in general: where once there were quirky foams and gels, now there are hearty pies and prawn cocktails. Food historian Pen Vogler, author of Stuffed: A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain, says the trend could be “a response to our anxiety around industrial food”. Of the devilled egg’s 1970s heydey, she says: “There’s something very incorruptible about an egg – and also the food of that era. It was the era before the take-off of ultra-processed foods. There’s perhaps a feeling that it comes from a period when we could trust what we were eating.”

Making devilled eggs – the slicing, blitzing and fastidious piping – feels like a nostalgic activity. And there is a pleasure in watching them disappear one by one. At Tom Brown’s new restaurant Pearly Queen, diners are “buzzing” for his devilled eggs, which he’s recently paired with Exmoor caviar. Next up is a deconstructed version with brioche soldiers and bone marrow. For home chefs, Brown advises going big with spice – “it’s called devilled for a reason” – and keeping things “as retro as possible” with a star-shaped piping nozzle. “Don’t mess about with it,” he says. “People will love ‘em.”