Honest Burgers

A couple of things spring to mind for me (and everyone else no doubt) when thinking about burgers in London.  Over saturation of the market and clear front runners (lucky chip, meatliquor) in the battle for London's best burger, it seems like more choices appear on a weekly basis, but can they compete with the best?

There are 3 camps I suppose, the street market, the affordable and the high end.  1 and 2 have begun to merge, think Meatliquor which began life as the Meatwagon, and Lucky Chip, who from humble market beginnings now have established residencies and are, in my opinion still offering the best burgers in town.

The high end burgers appeal to me less and less these days, the likes of Bar Boulud, Hawksmoor, Goodman, Burger & Lobster, all coming in at around the £15 mark.

Honest Burgers have been around for a few years in Brixton and recently opened just off Dean St in Soho.  I went along with some fellow burger lovers to see which category these might fall into.  They're less than £10 for starters.  The Soho outpost remains true to it's predecessor in that it's tiny, and always rammed.  You roll up, put your name on the list and wait.  On the Tuesday night that we visited the place was full and we waited for about half an hour (would have been less if I hadn't been late but my friends kindly gave up a table and waited for me).

The menu is unfussy, there's a beef burger, a cheeseburger, a chicken burger, veggie burger and a daily changing special burger.  I went for that days special, the beef burger with chipotle slaw, griddled courgettes and Welsh Monterey Jack.  As soon as it arrived I wished I'd just gone for the cheeseburger, I had to remove the courgettes to make it possible to handle and there were masses of unadvertised red peppers lurking beneath the bun.

The cheese and the chipotle were lost and barely discernible but the chips were brilliant.  The burgers are actually quite small, the meat is flavoursome and juicy and the patties were cooked nicely medium, I wasn't happy with the bun. 

The rest of the table ordered cheeseburgers with various dairy options, I had a bite of Sue's stilton which was great.  I'd perhaps like a plastic cheese option as is de riguer these days but they're not down with that at Honest.

Now you'll all have heard more than you wish to about London burgers and most reports have been favorable but, for what it's worth, I wasn't blown away by Honest Burger.  We really are spoiled for choice when it comes to burgers and 5 years ago, these would probably have made my day, but for now, I'll be sticking to Meatliquor and Slider Bar. They do a nice G&T though, great straws.

Honest Burger
4 Meard Steet
Soho
W1F
6/10