Byron’s The Shady

The Shady at Byron, O2 Greenwich

Today is National Sandwich Day in the US.  We don’t have a similar holiday here (outside of the wonderful British Sandwich Week, of course) so I have decided to adopt it (any excuse).

It’s been a while since I have written anything here, but only because I have been busy writing my other blog.  I have a whole list of sandwiches backed up in my draft folder that I hope to share with you soon, but right now I’m going to start with a burger.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see Lady Gaga at the O2 with my friends Madeleine and Joe.  In our younger gigging days we had a pre-show drinking ritual, which has been replaced with a pre-show eating ritual (let it not be said that your 30s are not fun), so turned up a little early, and ravenous, to look for dinner.  Anybody who has visited this curious building on the eastern curve of our river will know that it is hardly a gastronomic destination.  In the trend of all large public spaces in London, it has little more than a series of charmless chain restaurants providing fodder to the masses.  The food is often expensive and usually sub-par, as anybody who has found themselves in a Slug and Lettuce, staring blankly at the menu will attest.  Thank God for Byron, is all I can say.

In recent years, some chains have emerged that have bucked the trend somewhat. Byron is up there with the best of them, making burgers that could rival any in town.  As well as this, Thomasina Miers’ Wahaca and sourdough pizza giant Franco Manca are also good dining options.  Carluccio’s always has been, and remains, excellent.  Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

So we ended up, not unhappily, at Byron in the O2.  Having worked my way through their permanent menu some time ago, I usually opt for their monthly specials for a bit of a change.  This month, they have The Shady:  a 6oz hamburger with crispy cheese, pickle relish, American cheese, onion and ketchup.  I don’t recall ever seeing this on their menu before, and I was intrigued by the ‘crispy cheese’ which, I was told by the waiter, was a kind of parmesan crisp.  Sold.

The burger, as you would come to expect from Byron, was very good.  The patty was well-seasoned and pink in the middle and the toppings well-proportioned.  My only two gripes were that my patty was more medium than the medium-rare I had ordered, although this wasn’t too much of a big deal, and the cheese was not as crispy as I had hoped.  There was a little snap around the edges, but it seemed that the heat and other ingredients had softened it in the middle.  That being said, the addition of another kind of cheese is never a bad thing.

The staff at the O2 were excellent.  Our fries arrived cold so they replaced them and removed them from our bill.

Byron, The O2, Peninsula Square, London SE10 0DX.

Honest Burgers’ Tribute

Tribute at Honest Burgers

I find it hard to imagine a day when I will be bored with burgers.  I confess that when the number of burger joints in the city was reaching saturation point, I briefly foresaw that I would tire of them and start obsessing about something else instead, but that never happened.  Instead, it has invigorated my need to get out and try as many as possible of London’s diverse offerings.  Scotch egg burger?  On my list.  Ramen burger?  Making plans to go as we speak.  See… not bored yet.

Honest Burgers has been on my list for longer than I care to admit.  Considering their original site in Brixton is close to where I live, I really should have been by now.  Blame the long queues, the allure of Franco Manca or the unbearable number 37 bus, the only form of transport between Peckham and Brixton, if you like, either way, I feel as though I’ve been missing out.  It’s been a long time since I read a list of the best burgers in London that did not have Honest Burgers on it.

A new site in Oxford Circus finally gave me the push I needed to go, for it is a mere five-minute walk from my office.  My initial plans for a late breakfast were scuppered when my colleagues protested against a pre-midday burger, so we arrived instead at 12.15pm and got a table right away.  Like many other restaurants of its ilk, it operates a no-reservations policy and has only about 30-40 covers, hence the queuing.  That being said, even when full it did not feel too cramped, and its minimalist decor left it feeling light and airy.

Honest Burgers have a permanent menu of one chicken burger, one veggie burger and three beef burgers, including their eponymous offering with mature cheddar, smoked bacon and onion relish.  As well as this, there are usually a couple of monthly specials.  Their aim is to do simple burgers with excellent local produce, and use dry-aged beef from the excellent Ginger Pig butcher for their patties.  The salads are seasonal and the drinks local – including gins from London and Sussex and an English wine.

I ordered a Tribute burger, one of their monthly specials.  I usually make a point of ordering the most simple burger on my first visit somewhere but could not resist the perfect combination of cheese, bacon, American mustard and pickles – the exact kind of burger I have a weakness for.  Once it arrived, I could see why it was so popular: the patty was cooked perfectly medium rare (I would even say that it was verging on rare) and had an excellent beefy flavour with just the right amount of seasoning.  It was coated in a thick layer of delicious American cheese, my favourite kind, and topped with crisp bacon.  They were generous with the pickles, and I was lucky enough to be dining with a colleague who removed hers, so I quickly swiped them and added them to my own burger.  The brioche held it all together well.  My only gripe is that I wish the red onion had been pickled instead of raw, but that was it.  Honestly (sorry!) a very, very good burger.

Honest Burgers, 4 Market Place, London W1W 8AD.

Outside of London: Southampton: 7Bone Burger Co’s Double Shuffle to Straight Time

The Double Shuffle to Straight Time at 7Bone Burger Co, Southampton

I think people are beginning to clock on to the idea that I am a little obsessed with 7Bone.  I have written about them quite a lot on my other blog, and they were the only non-restaurant to feature on my Top 10 Burgers list for National Burger Day.  I thought I had written all there was to write on this restaurant, and thought I could instead just go for a quiet dinner whilst back in Southampton without my review head on:  I was wrong on both counts.

Whilst having a myriad of choices here in London when I have a yearning for a burger, the somewhat limited options of my home town left me a little deflated when trying to make dinner plans there.  When somebody told me last year that there was not only a burger bar opening in the city, but that the burgers were good, I hopped on the train from Waterloo to check it out for myself.  Needless to say, the hype was justified and I was so impressed that I have been back several times since (OK, every time I go back to Southampton).

So there we went to 7Bone for our quiet dinner.  Recently it has become almost impossible to get in straight away on a busy night, however they will put your name on a list and call you when a table becomes free, leaving you free to camp out in one of the nearby pubs for a quick drink.  A much better option than leaving you to queue on the street.  We waited about 40 minutes over in the Gordon Arms with a couple of drinks before our call came.  Just enough time to get us good and hungry.

The burger menu at 7Bone lists five beef burgers, two chicken burgers and the option to make any of them veggie.  They also offer hot dogs, sliders and a number of sides.  An extra £2.50 makes any burger a double (why wouldn’t you), and I quickly opted for the double ‘Shuffle to Straight Time’, a cheeseburger with fried onions and American mustard.

Trying to find any fault in this burger was a difficult task as I could not.  The patties, made with the 7-bone cut of the beef (very similar to chuck steak) have a deep beef flavour and are well seasoned with a nice amount of onion.  Both are cooked medium-rare (standard – although they do ask upon ordering if this is OK), although the bottom patty was a little more cooked than the top one – presumably residual cooking from steam-sealing the burger on the hot plate after its assembly? Just a guess.  The cheese was the slappy American kind, my favourite; and there was a good amount of fried onions, some soft and slippery and some crunchy, and a generous slick of mustard.  Initially I was disappointed not to have a pickle, but soon realised that it would have been superfluous and ruined the effect of the onions.

Having had the more elaborate creations in 7Bone previously, it is good to know that they also do the basics very well indeed.  I also had the chilli cheese fries, which were excellent.  Top marks all round.

(I couldn’t eat for 24 hours after this).

7Bone Burger Co, 110 Portswood Road, Southampton SO17 2FW.

The Ship’s Galley Burger

Burger from The Ship’s Galley, Fitzrovia

I don’t know if you’ve ever entered ‘best London’ into a Google search to see what the next word will be.  Of course, it is ‘restaurants’. Duh.

I know that it’s a huge cliché, but one of the things I love about this city is that there are always new places to eat.  I have spoken already about my love for the survival of London’s old establishments, but I cannot dismiss the excitement of the new.  In our social media-led age, it is not difficult to find out about new openings; they pay people to use every platform available to make us aware of them.  The hungrier we become for a certain food trend, the bigger the maelstrom of publicity that surrounds a new restaurant, and the more impatient we become to get down there, Instagram everything in sight and tweet about just how great it is.

In contrast to this, some new places open so quietly that it is only when you literally stumble across them that you become aware of their existence.  This happened to me yesterday.  With the back to work blues following my holiday, I took to the streets of Fitzrovia to seek solace in some lunch.  Turning off Foley Street to answer my phone, I almost walked straight into a couple of guys cooking on a hot plate outside of a cafe.  I was intrigued.

The cafe in question is The Ship’s Galley on Hanson Street, a tiny little coffee shop that has been in the owner’s family for 23 years.  Having recently been taken over by the two young sons of the family, they have branched out into a kind of outdoor BBQ, hoping to attract hungry office workers.  This new venture operates three days a week: burgers on Wednesdays, burritos on Thursdays and steak sandwiches on Fridays.  All priced at around the £5 mark.

I was a little sad to see the patty cooked well-done, as I am a fan of a pink middle, but was cheered up when they split the patty through the middle and filled it with cheese and the red onions that had been cooking on the hot plate next to the burger.  The bun was a standard seeded bun, but was fresh and held together well.  I was offered a choice of various toppings but opted only for pickles, lettuce, mustard and ketchup – which prompted a debate about tomatoes in burgers (my bete noire).  The thing about this burger is that it breaks the rules of what we think to be a good burger at the moment: no brioche bun, no medium rare, no ‘dirty’ sauce or ‘filthy’ sauce, but it tastes good.  The bread is fresh, the patty moist, despite being cooked right through, and well seasoned, and the toppings basic but right for the job.  It is a good honest burger which, with some of the gargantuan offerings about at the moment, is quite refreshing.

The Ship’s Galley, 1 Hanson Street, London W1W 6TA.

Outside of London: Baden-Baden, Germany: Leo’s Burger

Burger at Leo’s, Baden-Baden

I had never intended to go burger hunting during my trip to Germany, in fact I had resolved to ignore them completely and focus on trying to local cuisine.  As it turns out, there is only so much Alsace food you can eat without giving yourself a severe case of indigestion.  Overindulgence in flammkuchen, sausages and cake led me craving something a little simpler and a little more familiar.

The idea that a burger is somehow a remedy to rich food is laughable, but it was the best I could do.  Baden-Baden, as a small town, does not have the array of cuisines one would expect to find in a bigger city.  On our last night we simply wanted to find a restaurant that had food not laden with cream or soaked in vinegar.  Leo’s looked like a good bet.  It was an interesting place – right near the river with a few tables outside, the decor on the inside was like nothing I had seen in some time: dimly lit, white tablecloths, red velvet chairs and waiters in traditional black and white outfits.  The menu was a combination of traditional German dishes, a few from France and Italy, a couple of steaks and an 18 euro burger, highlighted in red text.

Ordinarily, only a very special burger would entice me to part with that much cash, but this lapses somewhat when I’m in another country.  Plus the words “we love it” next to this item on the menu gave me a little extra encouragement.

The first thing I noticed was the sheer enormity of the burger, which made me feel better about the price, however on closer inspection I could see that the patty was being propped up by rather a lot of salad.  We’re not talking garnish here, but almost a full side salad shoved into the bottom of the burger.  I’ve never been a lover of salad in my burger – a few lettuce leaves, some (pickled) red onions and a few pickles are sufficient.  This burger had a lot of lettuce as well as tomato, which contributes very little to a burger, despite the insistence of many to add it, and cucumber, which has absolutely no place in a burger. None.  Once the salad was removed it became a much more manageable size and not necessary to eat with a knife and fork.

The meat used for the patty was of exceptional quality, I suspect it was rib-eye.  It was well-seasoned and cooked medium (sadly not medium rare) and had a good amount of flavour.  The cheese was the slappy American kind, always good on a burger, well-melted and oozing; and the bacon crisp and smoky.  The bun was a generic seeded bun, but was of good quality.  It held together well despite the bottom half being a little soggy from all the salad.  My favourite thing about this burger were that they were not stingy on the pickles which, for a country that sells many different varieties in jars, you would expect.  All in all, an excellent burger.  Just lose the salad.

Leo’s, Luisenstraβe 8, 76530 Baden-Baden, Germany.

Sylvan Post’s Angus Beef Burger with Cheddar

Angus Beef Burger with Cheddar at Sylvan Post, Forest Hill

First up, apologies for the worst food photo ever taken.  Photography in dark bars is not my forte.  I would have taken this burger to a better lit area if I were not so hungry. Sorry.

Sylvan Post is one of the new additions to Forest Hill that happened after both the Overground arrived and I moved out.  It coincided with the SEE3 project, an initiative headed by Mary Portas to boost the businesses of Forest Hill, Kirkdale and Sydenham.  The pub was not part of that scheme, but is a welcome addition to a high street with few places to eat.

It is on the site of a disused 1960s post office and has kept some of the original features of the building which, combined with some vintage furniture and interesting artwork, makes a warm and welcoming pub.  They have quite an extensive beer menu, offering a range of bottled beers, as well as some on tap.  The menu is largely British bistro food with a few international influences and seasonal ingredients.

I ordered the burger, billed simply as an ‘Angus Beef Burger’ (£10.50 with chips) and added some cheddar at a further £1.  You could also add blue cheese and bacon for the same price.

Without much description on the menu, I was not entirely sure what to expect, but was not disappointed.  I could see the shine on the brioche bun before the plate even reached the table, and they were definitely not stingy on the side.  There was definitely value for money on the cheese, as the patty was topped with a slab of cheddar so enormous that I feared what kind of dreams I would be having that night.  Having removed the slice of tomato and most of the raw red onion inside the burger (for me, neither add anything good – pickled red onions on the other hand…) I noticed that it was missing some of the additions that really make a burger.  For me, some gherkins and a sauce, either mustard or ketchup.

That being said, the patty was very, very well seasoned and cooked perfectly pink in the middle whilst retaining the outer crisp.  The abundance of cheddar may be too much for some but I loved it.  Given a few little extras, this would be an excellent burger worth venturing to Zone 3 for.  Also, the chips were homemade, which is a rarity in pubs and such a delight.  They were not quite as good at my Mum’s, but that’s an impossible standard to live up to for anybody.

Sylvan Post, 24-28 Dartmouth Road, London SE23 3XZ

MEATLiquor’s Dead Hippie

The Dead Hippie at MEATLiquor, Marylebone

I don’t know what I can say about this burger that hasn’t been said before.  I have already hailed it as the best burger in London and put it to the top of my Top 10 Burgers list.  And yet somehow I still find myself wanting to write more about its many charms.  It seems that I have a bit of a thing for the Dead Hippie.

My love affair with these burgers goes back quite a long way.  It began when I used to visit a small van on a Peckham industrial estate.  It then moved to the upstairs room of a closed-down pub in New Cross, the legendary #Meateasy, very convenient as I was studying just around the corner at Goldsmiths at the time.  A brief stint at The Rye in Peckham brought these burgers dangerously close to my house before they finally moved to the MEATLiquor site in Welbeck Street, Marylebone.  This journey was just the beginning as sites are opening all the time, from the second restaurant, MEATMission in Hoxton, to the most recent establishments in Leeds, Brighton and, imminently, Bristol.  MEATLiquor; part restaurant, part Berlin squat; remains my favourite.  Yes, it’s dark in there and the queues are long, but it’s fun and the drinks are strong.

And it’s around the corner from my office.

I have sampled most of what the menu has to offer, but always come back to the Dead Hippie.  When asked to describe it, I always say “imagine a really, really, REALLY good Big Mac,” but, of course, it is so much more than that.  It has two mustard-fried patties that manage to be both crisp on the outside and beautifully rare within.  The flavour on the patty, probably due to the mustard is one of the best I have ever had.  It comes with a blanket of melted American cheese and the closely guarded ‘special sauce’, iceberg lettuce and thickly cut pickles.  I seem to remember from the old days of the open kitchen, that they are a fan of ‘sealing’ everything under a metal bowl on the hot plate.  The bread is soft and soaks up all of the sauce but somehow doesn’t disintegrate.

I have nothing negative to say about this burger, for me it remains the best of the best.  I would also recommend a side of either the deep-fried pickles with blue cheese sauce, or the chilli cheese fries if you’re really hungry.  Did I mention the drinks were strong?

MEATLiquor, 74 Welbeck Street, London W1G 0BA.

Recipe: Brioche Burger Buns

Brioche burger buns

Once upon a time, a burger in a brioche bun was a novelty that only existed in a handful of places in London.  We all marvelled and wondered why we hadn’t thought of it before.  After a while, it came to be the defining ingredient of a quality burger, something that set it apart from the floury ‘pub grub’ burger baps.  Now, they are everywhere.  It has been a long time since I saw a menu without one.  Brioche-mania is far from over.

I’m not actually sure that using a brioche bun is the right choice for every burger, but anyway.  There are some renegades that do use other bread, and it works really well.

Anyway, if brioche is your preferred bun, you want the same for your home cooked burgers, right?  For a while, they were difficult to find, limited only to a few independent bakeries.  Now, you can buy them in most supermarkets.  The best ones I have found so far are Chappers’ bun of choice:  Aldi’s brioche buns at four for £1.

As well as this, you could make your own.  Of course, brioche is a time-consuming beast to make, and the amount of butter you add to the mix will make your arteries quiver, but it is worth doing.  You can create buns of the perfect size to suit your own homemade burgers.  This recipe is based on a savoury brioche by Paul Hollywood.  You will need about 12 hours to complete the whole process, including chilling the dough overnight.

Brioche Burger Buns
Makes eight

500g strong white bread flour
10g fine salt
10g instant yeast
170ml warm full-fat milk
4 eggs
250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg, beaten, for glazing
1 tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

Put the flour, salt, yeast, milk and eggs into the bowl of a free-standing mixer and, using the paddle attachment, mix until the dough becomes smooth and shiny.  Continue to mix for another five minutes, adding the butter a teaspoon at a time until all of the butter incorporated into the dough.  It is important to add the butter gradually.

Tip the dough into an oiled plastic container with a lid.  The volume of the container should be a minimum of one litre so the dough has room to expand.  Leave to prove in the fridge overnight.

Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper.  Remove the dough from the fridge and divide into eight equal portions.  To make the bun shape, flatten out the dough into a disc and bring the edges into the centre and pinch together.  Turn upside down and place on the baking tray.  Place four buns on each tray, ensuring that there is enough space between them to allow them to expand.  Cover the rays with clingfilm or a clean plastic bag and leave to rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 190ºc / 375ºf / gas 5.  Brush the buns with a little beaten egg and sprinkle with the sesame seeds.  Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until risen and golden.  If you tap the bottom of the buns, they should sound hollow.  Leave to cool on a rack.

Peckhamburger’s Beef Burger with Bacon and Cheese

Beef burger with cheese and bacon at Peckhamburger

Last week, I wrote my burger wishlist for 2014-15.  It seems that you can’t swing a cat in London without hitting somewhere advertising its creation with ‘medium rare patty, brioche bun and house sauce/filthy sauce/dirty sauce’ (delete as appropriate) unless, it seems, you live in my particular corner of south-east London.  There are, of course, pub offerings.  Brockley Market on a Saturday has at least one burger on offer (usually the majestic Mother Flipper), and Dirty Burger is a mere 25 minutes on the 185 to Vauxhall.  But nothing that is roll-out-of-your-front-door close.  Dulwich/Peckham/Camberwell was somewhat lacking in burgers.  So you can imagine the delight when Peckhamburger opened in the neighbourhood.

Peckhamburger is a very, very local creation.  For one, it has made its home in the excellent Anderson & Co cafe on Bellenden Road, a bit of a Peckham institution that has already hosted a number of pop-ups in the evenings.  As well as this, the meat for the burgers comes from local butcher Flock and Herd, an opening from a Ginger Pig alumni that has queues snaking around the block. 

It is a simple set up, with just three burgers on the menu; beef, chicken and veggie; and each of these can be served ‘skinny’, so wrapped in a lettuce leaf instead of a bun.  To these you can add cheese, blue cheese, a fried egg or bacon at a surcharge.  There are three sides on offer, two puddings and a range of beers, wines and soft drinks.  I opted for the beef burger with cheese and bacon and a side of the bloody mary salted fries.

The best thing about this burger is the quality of the meat.  The beef patty is well-seasoned and full of flavour.  It was cooked medium (not quite medium-rare) and tasted spectacular.  On top of this was the Flock and Herd treacle cured bacon; crispy, a little sweet and very smoky.  It is the best bacon I have had on a burger anywhere.  As well as this there was a good amount of cheese and a lot of pickles.  The challah bun, similar to brioche but without the butter, held together well despite the juiciness of the burger, and the little smear of aioli gave it a nice kick.

Peckhamburger seem to have done their research and brought the best elements of a good London burger to SE15.  Using a well-known local cafe as a base and well-known local butcher as a supplier almost guarantees a step up on any competition nearby, despite the simplicty of the menu.  There is nothing about this burger that I didn’t like, although we did end up in a debate at the table about whether such a rich bun was the right bread to use for such a great burger:  Challah is a great, slightly less rich alternative to brioche, however some at our table felt that a non-enriched bread would better showcase such quality ingredients and that the extra richness was superfluous.  Either way, we all left happy and had a very short walk home.

Peckhamburger @ Anderson & Co (Wednesday – Saturday evenings only), 139 Bellenden Road, London SE15 4DH

Outside of London: Rugby: The Bull’s Cheddar and Bacon Burger

Cheddar and bacon burger at The Bull, Rugby

At the weekend I went to Shropshire for a friend’s wedding.  It’s the least densely populated county in the United Kingdom and one hell of a drive from south-east London.  By the time we reached the Midlands, after being stuck in Friday afternoon traffic for some time, we were hungry and in desperate need of both caffeine and some facilities.  Knowing the horror of motorway service stations only too well, we agreed to pull into the next town, park up and stop for lunch.  This is how we came to be in Rugby.

Neither of us had ever been to Rugby before, in fact all we actually knew about it was that it was the birthplace of Rugby football and home to a rather posh school.  A quick google of ‘best restaurants in Rugby’ on my iPhone yielded nothing interesting, so we instead decided to take a punt on the first restaurant or pub we came across.  This is how we came to be in The Bull.

It must be POETS day in Rugby as at 2.30pm, the pub was packed.  After we squeezed past the gaggle of smokers, the group of guys playing the fruit machines and the display urging us to Book Your Christmas Party Now, we found a table near the back and started on the menu.  Despite having a complete hatred for the term, this menu offered proper ‘pub grub’: pies, fish and chips, strange vegetarian concoctions clearly devised by a carnivore, nachos, nachos and more nachos.  It did, however, offer two meals for £6.95, and the allure of ordering two meals and two drinks and getting change from a tenner was too tempting for we who live in the land of the five pound pint.  A cheese and bacon burger for £3.50 (with chips) was either going to be a huge mistake or the bargain of the century.

In fact, it was neither.  I confess that I did not have high hopes for this burger in this unassuming little pub in the Midlands, which made me pleasantly surprised that it was actually fairly decent.  Of course, it was never going to be of the standard of the MEATLiquor, Patty & Bun et al., but it was not as disastrous as I’d feared.  For one, the bun was brioche and pretty decent; it held everything together well and didn’t disintegrate in the way that many of the cheaper buns do.  The patty was fairly thin, so was cooked well done all the way through, but it was well-seasoned and tasted quite nice.  A rasher of bacon and a few slices of melted cheddar were a perfectly decent topping, in fact, the only modification I made was to remove the red onion.  Not a great burger by the standard of what we are used to in the capital, but OK.

I think I always have this idea that anything that is not a gourmet burger is going to be terrible.  Of course, it is often the case, but I now allow myself the liberty of being pleasantly surprised from time to time.

The Bull, 28 Sheep Street, Rugby CV21 3BX