It’s quite a turnaround for London’s burger scene. Only 20 years ago, options were sparse — McDonald’s, Burger King, maybe some okay creation at a suburban pub. Wimpy has somehow existed since 1954. There are still 61 nationwide. Who knew?
Everything changed 15 years ago. In 2011, Meatliquor opened and people suddenly realised burgers could be so much more. The Dead Hippie remains one of London’s most important dishes.
Now you can’t move for burgers in London, whether thick and “gourmet” or “smashed” and new-age. We have quality chains in Shake Shack, Honest and Five Guys (among the more divisive — some of the Going Out team love Five Guys, some do not). And hyped up burgers in restaurants such as Dove (only 10 each day, very clever marketing), One Club Row and Canal. All of these are worth your time and money, but owing to their scarcity, haven’t made the list below.
But here’s our pick of the 10 burger restaurants that together define the London scene today.
Cheeseburger £10 (includes fries)
Jupiter burger
It isn’t any wonder Jupiter Burger is so good given it’s the work of the Dom’s Subs team, which is behind some of London’s greatest sandwiches, and one of east London’s best bars (Rasputin’s). Inspired by futurist 1950s googie architecture, the grab-and-go fixture in Netil Market is London’s answer to America’s famed In-N-Out Burger, which is sturdy inspiration. The key with Jupiter is the beef: it comes from Hill and Szrok, the butcher’s shop on Colombia Road, and it is smashed to become a thin patty but isn’t smashed too much (some restaurants are basically just serving beef crisps at this point). Patties are sandwiches in Martin’s buns (soft and buttery potato rolls; increasingly popular in London) and served simply, while a portion of twice-cooked fries come as standard. So the £10 cheeseburger and £12 Jupiter burger are good value. Try and get a stool so you can sit and enjoy the place. The hot baby peppers are the topping to go for if you need more to your burger.
Tommy’s
It’s a shame the Soho branch of Tommi’s closed. Thankfully there’s still one in Marylebone. In a world of smashburgers, big branding and hideous brioche, Tommi’s is the antidote, instead serving classic, old fashioned burgers — sort of like burgers countryside pubs do, or try to do anyway. Tommi’s is elegant and charming in its normalcy. An Icelandic brand — curious given Iceland is a country with some of the worst food going — beef patties are grilled hot and fast, slipped into soft white buns and topped with lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. The inclusion of tomatoes is excused at Tommi’s because they get simplicity right. Though you can always ask to have yours without.
Dumbo
A lot of people think Dumbo is Paris’s best burger joint. It’s certainly better than Junk (another Parisian import), where the buns are far too sweet. Dumbo does smashburgers and does them well: dry-aged beef from top butcher’s HG Walter is smashed with a spatula onto hot plates, locking in flavour and cooked to allow a juicy middle and crispy, charred and caramelised edges. Then comes diner cheese, pickles, chopped onions, ketchup and mustard. A burger as a burger should be. Is it better than Supernova? It’s a tough one. They’re much the same but Dumbo might edge it.
Supernova
A genuine Soho sensation, this smashburger specialist has created a firestorm of social media hype that has seen it explode not so much super- as hypernova. Originally opening for lunch only at its Soho branch (thus guaranteeing queues of hungry hipsters with no desk job to rush back to), it’s now open all day, every day, until 11pm. The two burger options are a patty with American cheese, mustard and ketchup, or an alternative slathered with the intensely flavoured in-house sauce; go for the plainer version to appreciate the crisp patty and gooey cheese. The only other things on the menu are no-frills fries and sundaes. Tables and chairs extend to an elbow-length, standing-room only counter; check the weather to avoid eating outside in the rain. Note: not everyone is a fan — “It’s just McDonald’s for wankers” was the less generous take from restaurant critic David Ellis. Don’t get the house sauce, stick with ketchup and mustard.
Four Legs at The Plimsoll
Dexter Cheeseburger, £14
Matt Writtle
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” Leonard da Vinci said. If only the ultimate Renaissance man had spent his time inventing something useful like a cheeseburger instead of working out how to fly, he might have come up with a food offering resembling the star attraction at this Finsbury Park pub, which is currently home to London’s most legendary piece of meat. A single beef patty is sandwiched in a glossy brioche bun with American cheese, homemade sauce, diced onion and some sweet-and-sour gherkin; it’s the quality of ingredients — including Dexter beef as well-hung as Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights — and the skill with which they are cooked which elevates this to the most refined version of a McDonald’s imaginable. The Plimsoll comes courtesy of chefs Jamie Allan and Ed McIlroy, a duo better known as Four Legs whose love for butch burgers is matched only by a determination to serve them on the prettiest floral crockery this side of Cath Kidston.
Burger devotees journey from across the capital to a humdrum parade by Rectory Road Overground for Bake Street’s smashburger, which is only served at the weekend — Bake Street is a coffee shop the rest of the time — and eaten under an awning outside come rain or shine. A smashburger is a puck of beef mince that has been pressed down hard on the griddle to achieve an all-over charring that seals the meat juices within the caramelised crust, achieving the holy grail of smokiness and succulence; here it’s simply served in a brioche bun with cheese, ketchup, mustard and shallots. If your commitment to the perfect burger doesn’t extend to Clapton, owner Feroz Gajia also oversees the smashburgers at Manna in the Arcade Food Halls at Centre Point and Battersea Power Station.
58 Evering Road, N16 7SR, 020 7683 7177
Press handout
Bleecker is meat and drink for time-pressed diners who don’t want to compromise on quality. The no-frills surroundings might not encourage lingering — hard surfaces, paper plates — but these are burgers to savour. The story goes that New York native Zan Kaufman had the best burger of her life at Zaitzeff in the East Village, where she began moonlighting from her career as a corporate lawyer. She jacked in the day job when she moved to London and opened Bleecker in a food truck before launching bricks-and-mortar sites in the City, Spitalfields, Victoria, Westfield, Baker Street, Soho, London Bridge, and Bloomberg, ideally located for a break from the office or shopping, or a quick bite before the train home. The secret is rare-breed, grass-fed beef cooked to order; the burger topped with blue cheese is the perfect match for the tang of meat aged on the bone for 40 days, but there are American cheese-and-bacon burgers for less pungent palates.
The Blacklock Burger, £14
Press handout
It’s a brave diner who foregoes a restaurant’s signature dish but we’d recommend ignoring Blacklock’s chops and wrapping your laughing gear instead around the house burger. Formerly a “secret” order when the Shoreditch branch launched (and which cynics wondered was simply a social-media thirst-trap), it is now on the menu and Instagrammable across Blacklock’s other sites at Bank, Canary Wharf, Covent Garden and Soho. It’s basically a deluxe cheeseburger that is testament to the power of thoughtful sourcing and saucing: two beef-and-bone marrow patties (from Philip Warren butchers in Cornwall) smothered in Ogleshield cheese and Montgomery Cheddar in a sesame-seed bun, elevated by the sweet-and-sour kick of onions caramelised in vermouth. Want fries with that? Order some beef-dripping chips.
Steven Joyce
This now nine-strong nationwide chain is the blueprint for most of London’s new-wave burger joints: punny names, boozy hard shakes, impressively inked staff, an indie-rock soundtrack and a backstory involving burger vans, pub pop-ups in a scuzzy corner of Zone 2 and finally West End domination. Crucially, Meatliquor introduced Londoners to sloppy burgers of pink-in-the-middle patties discharging sauce and meat juices all the way up to the elbow. The signature Dead Hippie was apparently inspired by visits to Burning Man by founder Yianni Papoutsis, though a Big Mac is the more obvious reference point: two beef patties are fried in French’s mustard and piled high with lettuce, American cheese, diced white onion, gherkin and a secret “Dead Hippie” sauce not unlike Thousand Island dressing. Onion rings in puffy batter, crunchy pickles with blue-cheese sauce, deep-fried mac’n’cheese and sauce-drenched fries make fine accompaniments, plus there are chicken and veggie burgers too.
Handout
Husband and wife Stew and Liz Down did their homework before opening their sit-down burger joints in Brixton, Westfield, and Clerkenwell, working ski seasons in Whistler (home of the black bear) and taking inspiration from Stew’s family beef farm in Devon. The butcher-made burgers use beef sourced from farms in the South West, oak-smoked bacon comes from outdoor-bred pigs in East Anglia, bespoke buns arrive fresh from a baker each day, and everything else (fries, sauces, rubs and pickles) is prepped and made in-house. The Black Bear burger involves two smashed dry-aged patties with bacon, onion jam, Kraft-style cheese and garlic mayo — though side orders are just as big a deal here: brisket spring rolls filled with 12-hour beer-braised beef, smoked bacon and cheese, chicken wings with buffalo and blue-cheese dipping sauce, and steak-rub fries zingy with habanero honey mayo. Wash it all down with pilsner brewed in collaboration with Pillars Brewery in Walthamstow.