“The burger is omnipotent and irresistible, it can never be weakened.”
A bit god-like, is that. But the rousing burger-inspired quotes on the Meat & Shake website aren’t far wrong. Burgers are still here. This meaty tide has yet to subside. Perhaps - along with cockroaches - they would be the only things left after a nuclear war; the bloody things just won’t die.
“If everything else fails, the burger will still stand”.
I don’t doubt it.
It’s just as well I quite like them, then. Meat & Shake is the relatively new kid on Tooting’s block (opened August 2013), taking over the site where an Indian restaurant stood before, and another before that.
It’s a clever location - I believe the next closest burger joint might be in Clapham (Byron - “opening soon” said the board last time I was there, and Haché). More importantly, they know their market - the menu is fully halal. I suspect the local Muslim community welcomed with open arms a new place to eat that wasn’t Nando’s or food from the Indian sub-continent.
It’s not a huge place, and I know how busy Tooting (Bec) can get. They also don’t take reservations, so I suspect any qualms will be around waiting for a table. Go a little either side of the usual eating times - 2pm on a Saturday and there were two tables free on arrival, it quietened down soon after.
They’ve gone for a casual American diner feel with leather booths and a sign illuminated with bare light bulbs. But there’s also a little refinement found in the large and heavy menus (for a burger place), and the addition of edible flowers and chefy slashes of sauce with your meal. The latter is entirely superfluous, but I appreciate the effort to be a little different.
The sourcing is solid. All the meat is free range and from Macken Brothers. Beef is dry-aged for a minimum of 35 days, ground daily and made into patties to order. And the meat offerings stretch far beyond what you can find between a bun - think lafayette wings, steak, slow-cooked sticky ribs and dogs.
Wave the hint of truffle under my nose and I will order it, even if it comes on a Spontex J-cloth. There is always the risk though, that ordering something with white truffle mayo and a honey and truffle glaze can be too potent.
But the Truffle Shuffle (“hey you guys!”) was spot on, with melted Gruyère to boot. Patty pink in the middle with juices escaping as I cut, the whole assembly as sloppy as you like - my burger preference. The brioche bun - shiny, plump and fluffy - provided a perfect medium to mop up the mayo and dark sticky glaze; there are few things worse than bun left over with nothing for it to do (£7.90).
How I am with truffle, the other half is with blue cheese; “There’s proper blue cheese in this - I just got a bit of wheel rind” - a good sign. The Pepé Le Pew, also with aioli, red onions, walnuts and soft caramelised pear, was better than a similar offering he’d had at a much more well-known burger joint in town, he said (£8.50).
Dirty Fries (enough for two) looked like a toddler had gone mental in a Little Chef, but they were good. Chips topped with chilli con carne with nice fat kidney beans, sour cream, a stringy mess of melted cheese, slashes of mustard and generous helpings of jalapenos, which is always nice to see. I’d put them on a different plate though - it looks too busy (£5.50).
The coleslaw was a little disappointing and mostly left - too watery. Thicken up the mayo dressing and add a bit of Dijon would be my advice (£2.50). The side of gherkins were three fat piquant whoppers, so that was good (£1.90).
Shakes take up a whole page, with flavour combinations enticing enough to draw me back alone - fig and cinnamon, coconut and mango, stem ginger with lemon and honey, peanut butter with banana and brownies. But salted caramel was there and we all know how impossible that is to ignore. So it was ordered, delivered in a frozen metal vessel, and very much enjoyed (£5).
In an effort to boost my calorie credit before gorging, I walked over 2 miles to get to Meat & Shake from my house; I likely would again. A solid Tooting eatery and great to see on my local dining scene. I hear they have plans to expand - if I were them, I’d stick to neighbourhoods crying out for good burgers, rather than trying to compete with the well-established heavyweights up town.
Keep a hungry eye on these guys.
Liked lots: burger sloppy-ness, shakes, it's local to me
Likes less: coleslaw
Good for: good burgers that you don't have to go in town for, getting adventurous with the shakes, halal-seekers
My rating: 3.5/5
Find the menu on Zomato.
Afiyet olsun.
Note: I was invited as a guest to review this restaurant.
To the person who said, ‘London can never have too many burger purveyors’ I say, ‘Be careful what you wish for’. Still, they continue to pop up everywhere like a teenage breakout. The burger trend - that feels like it’s been with us since BC times - shows little sign of abating.
What’s nice about Tommi’s Burger Joint is that it’s anything but a bandwagon-jumper. The name above the door is that of Tomas Tómasson, the entrepreneur with a small five-strong chain in his homeland of Iceland (one of which I have eaten at - the country knows how to do fast food), an existing site in Marylebone and now this new opening on Kings Road.
The man knows a thing or two about burgers. The crowd at this launch were regaled both with food (tasty sliders, skinny salted fries, bubbles and all the posh homemade condiments you can pile on) and the story behind the deep-running relationship with this fast-food favourite (which outdates any recent trends) from Tómasson himself - he’s quite the raconteur.
He joked about getting into the chef business because he could get away with being drunk on the job (I suspect there may be some truth in that), jested that flipping burgers was the only work he could get ‘after rehab’, and that he soon realised he loved eating them.
He used to run The Hard Rock Café in Iceland, and claims to have eaten at least one burger every day for the past 10 years. That last nugget of insight was shared whilst the buttons to his shirt were undone in front of a room full of onlookers to reveal a very impressive 65 year old six-pack - his counterargument to ‘fast food is fattening’. One way to make a point.
Did I mention my business card got pulled out of a hat and I won flights and two nights for two in Reykjavik to eat at the original Tommi’s out there (again)? Oh, well I did. That was rather splendid.
I’m really looking forward to it - the following they have in Iceland is huge and my visit (when I was there a year or so back) was secured through the high acclaims I came across during pre-holiday eating research.
In the meantime, I’ll visit the Kings Road branch again to get my chops around a full sized beast, with extra homemade ketchup.
Afiyet olsun.
Some restaurants want to be all things to all people. Welcoming but exclusive, cavernous but intimate, classic but innovative, broad in their offerings but still specialists. It’s a format that works for a select few when mastered. But for the rest of the mere mortal dining options that line our streets, do one thing really well and there's a good chance you’ll be a success.
Honest Burgers in Soho is the offshoot from the original branch in Brixton Market and opened in the summer of last year. Founded by Tom Barton and Phil Eles, the recipe for their burgers was refined over time through customer feedback via the small catering operation they started with in Brighton. When the unit in Brixton became available, they snapped it up as a perfect spot to settle in the big smoke and have not looked back since.
The menu at Honest Burgers is comprised of burgers that all come with chips. Fillings are free-range chicken, their exclusive supply of dry aged beef mince from butchers The Ginger Pig (there are three variations of this option helped by a handy flow chart), or a spiced vegetable fritter. There is also a daily special. Sides come in the form of more chips (delivered with each burger anyway), a green salad, beetroot and apple slaw, and a chipotle mayonnaise. And that is the food menu in its entirety.
Brief menus combined with occupied seats have my restaurant barometer reading reaching for the skies; you know good things are going down when the two are holding hands.
A maiden visit means opting for the namesake dish - it will be the longest serving entry with a recipe that's been sculpted over time. The Honest comes with a sweet red onion relish, smoked bacon, pickles and lettuce, with the thick patty draped in a layer of melted mature cheddar and sandwiched between a glazed, toasted brioche bun.
From the list of things I was anticipating from this meal, a disappointing first bite did not make an entry. But it's what I got; there were no meaty juices collecting at the corners of my mouth to mop up with a rogue tip of tongue, and the centre of the patty was quite tough and dry. It was not unpleasant by any means, but it wasn’t the dripping, glistening, yielding slab of meat I had hoped for.
It was the final morsel of this burger that revealed the potential of its content - it was soft and savoury and succulent. Coupling this with the fact one of my companions had a centre that had felt no heat whatsoever (it was pink as rare and not medium as we were told to expect), I suspect we were subject to a cook that needs a bit more scrutiny. All other components were perfectly befitting of the stacked-high jaw-stretching satisfaction one gets from a good burger. But if the meat had been cooked with more skill, I suspect it would have been excellent.
And the sides? Good grief, the sides. The slaw was vibrant and earthy and slightly sweet from the apple. And by the way, I don’t really like chips. I don’t even care for potatoes that much. But these fries were something else. Crisp exteriors, fluffy centres, tossed in finely chopped rosemary and liberal salt. Hot and savoury and a complete palate riot with the whisp of smoky heat from the chipotle mayonnaise. Get a second portion. Get a third.
Everything about Honest Burgers is unpretentious. Whilst centrally located in Soho, it’s situated on a quieter, small side street (Meard St, off Dean St.). It is bereft of any decoration other than the giant blackboard on one wall and a series of hooks to hang your coat on. Tables and chairs are basic wooden affairs (made by Tom and his step-father). The food is served in the thin metal blue-rimmed pie dishes you can probably buy in bulk from Costco. The light bulbs are pared-back bare.
And in the same way the attraction of substance and intellect can be far more powerful than lusting over looks, I think it’s sexy. And I want to (and will) go back.
My rating: 3.5/5
Liked lots: chips; atmosphere; location; interiors; fantastic value; The Ginger Pig exclusivity; not feeling like I’d eaten a pile of filth and having to contend with a bout of self-loathing; no reservations but they very helpfully take your number and text you when a table becomes available so you can go and have a drink somewhere and return - wonderful
Liked less: my slightly tough patty - I’m almost certain it was just bad luck
Good for: potato converts; spontaneous dining; small groups; friends; a cheap good dinner
Afiyet olsun.
I do a lot of things ‘as a matter of principle’. Often a guise for what is essentially my unequivocal stubbornness, wave a ‘principle counter’ over me and my reading is click-clicking off the chart. While this may initially sound like a virtuous trait, it really isn’t.
For example, when driving, I will continue ahead in my correct lane even though I know the cretin next to me in the wrong lane also wants to carry on forwards. By neither of us dropping back, it is inevitable we will bump cars. But I am in the right, he is in the wrong. I am therefore exempt from any bolts of wrath and misfortune from above. And so I don’t move, as a matter of principle. Personal beliefs still upheld, but car bumped (true story).
At few other points in life do I flex my muscles of principle more than when the latest fad is sweeping the nation. Fifty Shades of Grey, Angry Birds, Harlem shaking, planking are all examples of crap crazes I have refused to entertain, as a matter of principle. If it pleases the masses, the bitter cynic in me makes the immediate assumption it won’t please me. Turns out my theory doesn’t have a 100% success rate; who knew.
The American burger chain Shake Shack opened its first set of doors on UK soil earlier this month, specifically on Covent Garden soil and only a week apart from one of its largest American competitors, Five Guys.
They, and others, have been riding the crest of the wave that is the recent and all-encompassing UK burger resurgence. Even the vegans amongst us would have found it difficult to ignore burger joints springing up across the capital like rodents on a Whac-A-Mole arcade game - Dirty Burger, Honest Burgers, Mother Flipper, Meat Liquor, Patty & Bun, to name a few. And people are going crazy for them, rushing to sample with a fervour like they’re on commission.
With PR machines and social media working overtime to create trending hashtags and an Instagram meltdown prior and during openings, launches of these fast-food-with-finesse joints have seen early adopters queuing for tens of minutes at a time to be one of the first to get their chops around the newest best burger in town.
As a matter of principle, I have refused to be swept up in these initial fanatical flurries of overzealous and disproportional activity, whilst at the same time reading reviews with the simultaneously furrowed and cocked brow of a sceptic.
However, I did eat in a Shake Shack in NYC a couple of years back. And I do recall it being very good. And on that basis and that basis alone, in the name of objective comparison, I saw it my duty to see what this Covent Garden store had to offer. That was definitely my soul motivation..
Situated in the old Market Building at the centre of Covent Garden, Shake Shack comprises of the premises housing a band of cash registers backed by the kitchen and only al fresco seating (although dining areas are covered by the Market Building roof).
Along with your name, you give your order to the well trained and smiling till staff and a buzzer you’re handed makes a racket once the food is ready to collect from the pick-up counter. We were a party of three, each ordering the double Smoke Shack - essentially a bacon cheeseburger with two beef patties. I also ordered the Union Shack concrete (ice cream) and there were a couple of portions of crinkle cut chips on the table.
Burgers I’m used to are an assembly of quite separate components. Two halves of a well structured bun with a pattie betwixt and toppings involved somewhere in the gathering. It is easy to separate each piece out to decorate your plate and systematically work your way round the constituent parts if that's your thing (I have actually witnessed this method of eating a burger).
But at Shake Shack, you are presented with a single soft mass of yielding savoury and juicy wonder. The patties, cheese and bun unite into palate coating mushy magnificence rendering them impossible to dissect.
In one mouthful you can enjoy an amalgamation of meaty grease from the smashed patty, slight sweetness from the toasted bun, a whisp of heat from chopped cherry pepper, oozing American-style cheese, saltiness from the crisp bacon and tang from the signature Shake Shack sauce (like a piquant mayonnaise); together they send the pleasure receptors into a manic frenzy.
Shake Shack are not quiet about all their ingredients (bar the buns which are flown in from America) being carefully sourced from UK farms and suppliers. The beef is 100% raised Aberdeen Angus, grass fed on Scottish pastures and they refrain from ever using hormones or antibiotics on their cows.
The meat is ground daily and burgers are cooked to order rather than left drying out under a heat lamp. Each patty consists of 1/4lb of this beef smashed onto the grill for an intensely flavoured and slightly caramalised crust. Yes please.
Bacon is free-range Wiltshire cure smoked. The imported buns are typical of an American burger (as opposed to brioche or posh bread options often found in the UK) and similar to Martin’s potato rolls with the inclusion of potato flour - an excellent choice for absorbing dripping goodness.
In a moment of madness and excited anticipation, we all completely forgot to request any toppings and in fact failed to even notice them on the menu. The one thing I felt was missing from the burger was only absent due to my lack of attention - pickles. A good enough reason to return for me.
Chips were sturdy and crisp on the outside with fluffy middles and essentially pretty good (I’m not the world’s biggest fries fan). The Union Shack concrete that rounded off my meal consisted of frozen chocolate custard, bites of chocolate and hazelnut brownies, fudge sauce, shrapnel of bitter dark chocolate and a touch of sea salt - a thick, dense and very chocolatey ice cream with lots to bite down on and served in a cardboard drink cup.
My verdict here is that despite the irritating initial fanfare, I really enjoyed this meal. Compared to other burgers I’ve eaten in this country, Shake Shack offers something quite unique - it’s just not like any other I’ve had. In all fairness, I haven’t eaten at enough of the competitors to form an entirely informed opinion based on adequate comparisons, but who the hell cares.
Shake Shack burgers are so good I could easily eat one for breakfast. No doubt that says more about me than the burger.
Liked lots: burger, chopped cherry pepper, nice staff, location, covered al fresco dining, concretes, a short and quick queue
Liked less: slightly confusing entrances and exits to the queue and ordering
Good for: a quick bite, al fresco dining, significantly exceeding your daily intake of saturated fat, jumping on the bandwagon
My rating: 5/5
Afiyet olsun.
