chips – Burger Source

Beast & Field, Box Park, Shoreditch

August 27, 2025Posted in Bacon, Gourmety, High street, london, Pop up, ReviewsTagged Bacon, beast and field, beef, boxpark, burger, cheese, chips, ethical eating, grass aged beef, Himalayan salt, lilt, london, onion jam, paprika, Pop up, restarestaurant, review, Reviews, shallots, shoreditchLeave a comment

A burger of contrasts

Burger source

Honestly? I was trying to meet a friend at Dumbo Shoreditch after all the TikTok hype, but I didn’t realise that it was full-on, take-out only, so we retreated to the old faithful that is Box Park, and was delighted to find that Beast & Field had arrived since I last stopped in… Literal fresh meat.

Their mission, says their website, is simple. Make ethical eating easy and fun. In particular – they focus on getting grass-fed beef from farms they trust, cooking it well and pricing it sensibly. Did they succeed? SPOILERS.

The order

They’ve only got one burger; a steak patty, with onion jam, crispy shallots, tomato, leaves, mayo and their own handmade organic burger bun. I added bacon (it’s an option!) and had a side of their chips, which come with smoked paprika and Himalayan salt, no less.

The meat of it

What’s wrong with this picture? Well clearly the bun is burnt; that’s not a deliberate look for it. But otherwise – strong melt on the cheese, good char on the meat, an elegant stack. The fake Lilt looks interesting, and the fries…. Well I’ll come back to that.

Cross section…

This started to restore confidence. Bright, fresh vegetables protect the lower bun. The meat is well proportioned and coarse ground, though perhaps a little well done for a thick patty. The onion jam promises some sweetness, the crispy shallots falling out the side promise some crunch, and the bacon is rended crisp but not glass-like in its texture. The bun has a good grain despite its overly browned state. In short; it’s looking good on the whole.

First bite… well, it’s definitely burned. The char on the bun adds bitterness and the bun is slightly dryer than intended. The meat is beautifully seasoned and has a lovely bite as you get through the well cooked exterior… but it slightly dryer than intended again from an over generous turn on the griddle. The bacon gives crunch, the shallots give crunch, the cheese adds further to unguent, umami goodness. There’s brightness from the veg and sweetness from the onion jam…. I find myself almost forgiving the burnt bun and the overdone meat as this burger strikes that perfect balance of sweet and savoury; of crunchy and comforting. If your home was made of 100% grass fed beef, this burger would taste of home – it is comforting and happy making, even with its flaws.

The sides?

Two things to speak of here; the chips first. They are glorious; tossed in a delightfully savoury set of seasonings (Himalayalicious), they are chip-shop cut – chunky – but double or triple fried so as to be brilliantly crispy and crunchy. The thickness means many of them maintain that pillowy fluffiness some people are so keen on in a chip; for me it was that on occasion, with a heavier dose of crunchy goodness that made these pretty much the paradigm of a chip. The sauce was a chimmichurri mayo; smooth, slightly sour, savoury, fresh and delicious. If only I hadn’t dropped half of it when I collected my order…

The fake lilt drink? Also delicious, though that was from Boxpark’s bar, so… can’t really count it.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 2.5/5 – major deductions for it being burnt.
Build – 5/5 – can’t fault the construction
Burger – 4/5 – elsewhere this would have scored worse due to being overdone. But in gestalt, the quality of everything was aces
Taste – 4/5 – better than expected; awesome flavour/culture contrast
Sides – 5/5 – cannot fault chips or dips
Value – 4/5 – £18 for burger and side, minus service (because Box Park, there is none) felt a lot given it was burnt. But it was a well constructed burger, the portion was generous, and inflation is a beast too.

Burger rating – 4/5 – the overall experience was joyous despite its constraints.

The deets

There’s a few of these around; Boxpark, Mayfair, Ladbroke Grove & Shoreditch. Find your local; it’s worth a try. And if it’s burnt, sent it back and get them to do it right – it’s worth the fuss.

The Anthologist, Bank, London

June 20, 2023June 20, 2023Posted in Chain, london, Pub, ReviewsTagged applewood cheese, bank, burger, cheeseburger, chips, drakehouse and morgan, lettuce, london, Mayo, the anthologist, tomatoLeave a comment

A paragon of mediocrity

Burger source

It seems that I have something of a reputation for my burger fandom. So, when meeting an industry friend for lunch, I was asked ‘are you going to have the burger…’

Honestly, I was considering the salad. But I didn’t want to disappoint.

The order

OK, there’s nothing fancy about it, but it sounded fine (though I have now had to Google ‘Applewood cheese’ – save yourself the trouble, it’s just a smoked cheddar) – the simply billed ‘cheeseburger’ came complete with: 7oz British beef, Applewood cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise & chips.

Unpretentious. Fine. Could be good – a good burger doesn’t need to be complicated.

The meat of it

But it does need to be some other things.

Presentation’s OK (to a point). But some worrying tells. First – that pickle. Unnecessarily gargantuan proportions, slightly worrying shade of green.

Second: large lettuce pieces atop burger. Wrong place. Schoolboy. It’s meant to be protecting the underbun from the juiciness of the burger. And it should be chopped.

Third : where’s the aforementioned juiciness? Nowhere to be seen. That plate is too clean, that bun is too intact.

Time for the cross section.

Structural integrity of the stack was next to zero. Top bun slid off salad, which – unchopped – slid off in turn (dice your lettuce, people, it’s not hard. A rough chop is fine). The mayo is meagrely applied, the bun is even more suspiciously dry, and now – whilst the romaine is bright green – you can see a peek of an extremely underwhelming tomato slice beneath the burger, too. Now, I’ve always had my reservations about tomatoes on a burger, but a pale, flaccid looking specimen like this? No. Just no. It’s wrong. That said – the cheese melt is top notch, the burger looks to be made with coarse ground meat that isn’t overpacked… but it’s so dry. I’m worried.

First bite.

Bread’s dry. Burger’s dry; overcooked but tolerably pliant. There’s no sauce. There’s no salt. The cheese adds texture but next to no flavour – no smoke evident, applewood or otherwise. In aggregate, the burger adds texture but almost no flavour. It’s like chewing on burger textured cardboard; the mouthfeel isn’t bad, but the lack of taste makes the whole experience surreal. In fact, they could have marketed this burger as the ‘Covid simulator’ because it’s like they took your dang sense of taste away. If Uncle Roger did burger reviews, he’d be taking away the Anthologist Chef’s Uncle title in this very moment.

The chips – however – were fine. Well seasoned, crisp, made of decent quality potato, and only marginally too chunky for my liking.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 1.5/5
Build – 1.5/5
Burger – 1.5/5
Taste – 1/5
Sides – 4/5 – the chips were good, lose a point for being a tad on the chunky side
Value – 1/5 – £16 for burger and side, ish. But tbh at £12 it’d have still only been a 3/5.

Burger rating – 1.5/5 – I ate it. Had it been much worse, I wouldn’t have.

The deets

I’m only telling you so if you find yourself there you remember NOT to order the burger; it’s a Drake & Morgan pub round the corner from Bank station. Avoid it here.

Flat Iron, 77 Curtain Road, Shoreditch

March 23, 2023March 23, 2023Posted in Chain, Gourmety, london, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged beef dripping chips, cheese pull, cheeseburger, chilli, chips, flat iron, fries, ketchup, london, Mayo, reiew, shoreditchLeave a comment

Sumptuous, near-perfect chilli cheeseburger

Burger source

Flat Iron has been on my list for some time; a well established and popular mid-high end steak chain, I’d heard good things about the burger too and thought it was worth a shot. An opportunity came – I caught up with an industry colleague and we both took the opportunity to go for it.

The order

It was a lunch so no extravagance – the smoked chilli cheeseburger, made with Flat Iron herd beef, which was a special – and a portion of fries (sorry, ‘home-made beef dripping chips’) between us.

The meat of it

Let’s take a look.

Nice presentation – simple, wrapped to help with the cheese melt, and lovely when unwrapped – the look and the smell was incredible.

In cross section… wow. It’s a double patty smash, with the smoked chillis in between, a mayo/aioli and salad protecting the lower bun (correct), and the most incredible cheese melt. The bun is soft and incredibly well balanced with the meat – providing structural integrity but not endless starchiness.

First bite… OMG. The chillis are really gentle, providing virtually no heat but a wonderful, light… I want to say sourness? And the patties – seasoned perfectly, cooked perfectly with a coarse grind to the tender, juicy meat – incredible. Full of umami, the cheese pull added a lovely bit of drama. The fresh salad and mayo/aioli provided a little sweetness to contrast the otherwise perfect umami bomb of a burger. Just an absolute delight.

As to the fries…

There was nothing special about these fries, and I do not mean that as a criticism. Perfectly cut, perfectly fried, perfectly seasoned – they are very good chips. No crazy seasoning, no unnecessary toppings, just – wonderful, on their own or dipped in the provided ketchup and mayo.

This place is *great*. We were also served inside of 10 minutes, which was pretty incredible.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 5/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 5/5 – I have no notes. This was perfect. Don’t change a thing.
Taste – 5/5
Sides – 5/5

Value – 5/5 – £13 for the burger £4 for the fries feels reasonable for this quality.

Burger rating – 5/5 – easily one of the best burgers in London.

The deets

Just off the Shoreditech strip, there are a few of these around. Check the website to find your nearest and make it a priority. I want to go back and have the steak, now…

The Armoury, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

November 26, 2019November 26, 2019Posted in Outside London, Pub, ReviewsTagged Bacon, burger, burgers, cheddar, chips, Pub, shrewsbury, shropshire, steak, the armouryLeave a comment

A very respectable pub burger

Burger source

This wasn’t a burger of any great conceit. Simply billed as a ‘steak burger,’ it sat in the middle of a menu replete with every Roast dinner you can imagine, and some you probably wouldn’t (mixed beef and pork roast is a thing, apparently, and weird as it sounds… it actually looked kind of tempting. Turf and hoof?).

I was in the area for a close friend’s birthday and couldn’t resist ordering the burger, as it’d been a while since I tried a new one.

The order

I ordered the sole burger – a steak burger topped with grilled bacon and Cheddar, served with coleslaw and chips.

I tried to order it cooked to medium, but was told it came as it came – the beef wasn’t minced on site.

The meat of it

This looked decent on the plate. Let’s look again.

Glistening bun, solid melt on the cheese, bright, crisp-looking veg and a pot of home made relish? Very tempting. You can see and sense the crunch on those chips, and whilst the coleslaw is a little unremarkable, you reserve judgement. The overall impression is good.

In the vital cross-section:

A few things to note.

First, the meat is pink. They’ve cooked this burger perfectly. And the meat is coarse ground and loosely packed, just as I like it.

Second, it’s not a brioche. A standard bread, it is surprisingly dry. Which means in turn that the meat isn’t desperately juicy. Which is perhaps slightly unsurprising, if this is a burger made of a single cut of beef, steak mince no less, with a relatively low fat ratio.

Third, the salad is hefty. I’ve already removed the sweet, fresh tomato – I prefer that on the side than in the burger. Also out of shot is a thick slice of pickle – too much for the burger, really, a thinner option would have been welcome.

On to the taste.

The meat is light on seasoning and the crust is soft – perhaps their griddle wasn’t hot enough to get a really good sear on it. The cheese is a bit on the mild side – a bit more sharpness would have been welcome, or the savoury goo of American cheese – but the bite is firm and the bacon adds good flavour, making up for the low-salt elsewhere. The relish adds a sweetness – unremarkable but necessary given the relative dryness of both bun and burger. It doesn’t quite make up for the low fat ratio – mayonnaise would have been a welcome friend. But the overall impression is more than serviceable; the flavours come together well, the crisp, fresh crunch of the vegetables, the salt from the bacon, the heft of the meat.

As to the sides; the coleslaw added some of the necessary fat to complement the burger, which was great. The chips were as they seemed – crunchy on the outside and squidgy in the middle. Absolutely perfect once salted. The pickle was excessively sour; not to my taste. I prefer a sweet gherkin, this one was more than a little sharp.

Overall, a good combination. If the chefs at the Armoury want to stick with a single cut of meat, they could spark it up by offering an aged cut, and adding a bit more fat to the sandwich via mayo or some other mechanism. A touch more seasoning and a touch more heat on the grill, and a good burger would become a great burger.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 3.5/5
Build – 3.5/5
Burger – 3.5/5
Taste – 3.5/5
Sides – 4/5 – great chips
Value – 4/5 – £13.75 for a large portion seemed reasonable, though I don’t know how to gauge value in this part of the country!

Burger rating – 3.5/5 – in the upper echelons of pub burgers.

The deets

The Armoury is on Victoria Quay, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. If you’re in the neighbourhood, it’s a lovely place to eat and drink. Be tempted by the mixed roast; I was.

The Laughing Gravy, 154 Blackfriars Road, London

November 11, 2018Posted in Bacon, london, RestaurantTagged aberdeen angus, Bacon, blackfriars, cheddar, chips, dry-aged, dry-aged beef, fries, gammon, london, restaraunt, smoked bacon, southwarkLeave a comment

Extraordinarily tasty burger with somewhat ordinary chips and even more exceptional pud

Burger source

This is a restaraunt with really a very high calibre of food across the board. So the burger doesn’t feature centrally, and gets just modest billing on the menu. Nonetheless; I expected from the reputation the restaraunt had acquired that this would be no “pub” burger.

The order

I had the Aberdeen Angus cheese burger with hand cut chips, with added smoked bacon for an additional £2. Portobello mushrooms and fried onions were also available as an alternative topping.

No starters, though I did share a pudding with an old friend. More on the 3-way salted caramel to follow.

The meat of it

This burger tastes extraordinary. Let’s look at it a little more closely.

You can instantly see a good crust on the meat. The bun looks sturdy – perhaps excessively so? That rather depends on the meat, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The gammon-like bacon is thick, and covered with a good amount of very melty cheddar. A small drizzle of grease has escaped the otherwise perfect plating and speaks to a juicy feast to follow.

The grease is explained. The coarse ground meat is cooked to a perfect medium, and whilst it looks and seems dry in the first pic, you can see here that the bun only just holds up to the meat juice. The bacon portion is ludicrously generous, and there’s a little red of relish in there of some description. You can see the cheese melting off to the side, a forgotten spider web of dairy deliciousness.

On first bite, you’re overwhelmed with umani. Whislt I ordinarily don’t love non-crispy bacon in a burger, this thick cut smoked meat adds a delicious taste on top of the already well-seasoned beef. The beef itself is high grade, aged Aberdeen Angus, with a little of the delightful funk you get with dry-aging. It’s not overpowering though; this is not a complex burger, simply a very well constructed one. The melty cheddar binds without overwhelming the burger but the overall impact is very salty; the little relish is overpowered and the burger would have benefited from a sweet contrast. Perhaps my own fault for adding bacon but not ketchup.

I ate this burger slowly; it’s very rich and deserved savouring. They’ve made something wonderful here.

To the sides; the small side salad had a sweetish dressing and was a nice, if token, gesture in the direction of health. The chips were thick-cut, chip-shop style chips and were inconsistent – some soggy, others crisp to the point of shattering. A happy medium would have delivred a better experience throughout.

The pudding, of which I have no picture I’m afraid, was extraordinary. Brownie in multiple forms, a lush salted caramel gelato, cruchy bits in a sweet caramel goo, plus gooey salt caramel and chocolate embedded in a crisp brownie. There were peanut pieces surrounding the salted caramel gelato adding both salt and crunch. Wonderful. We shared it – at £9.70 and with three different grades of indulgence scattered across a large plate, it’s best shared between two!

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 4/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 5/5
Taste – 4.5/5 – – more relish, or some sweet pickle and this would be up there
Sides – 3/5
Value – 3.5/5 – £16 for burger and sides, ish, with added bacon, and best part of £5 for the pudding (SHARED!) – this place is definitely more £££ than ££. But it is that kind of place.

Burger rating – 4/5 – despite the price and middling chips, this is a very special burger indeed.

The deets

Just up from Southwark Tube, it was quiet on a Friday lunchtime. It’s a well kept secret indeed, but definitely deserving of wider recognition!

BFI Bar & Kitchen (Benugo), South Bank, Waterloo

November 3, 2017November 5, 2017Posted in london, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged Benugo, BFI, chips, fries, gorgonzola, Italian, london, restarauntLeave a comment

Gorgonzola-y goodness at the British Film Institute

Burger source

The BFI’s Bar & Kitchen has an eclectic modern European menu, and the burger sounded an interesting take on the convention. It was also the only burger on the menu, and of course they make little of its provenance, so I was fully prepared that this would be a mediocre attempt at best. I was pleasantly surprised… but… spoilers.

The restaurant itself is a delight – light and airy, completely calm at lunchtime on a Friday. I’m sure it’s busy at the weekends… but the service and ambiance today was perfect. I know from past experience that they have an excellent cocktail menu too.

The order

Bread, oil and balsamico to start followed by the burger – the BFI 6 oz beef burger, served with Gorgonzola, radicchio and red onion, on a butter milk bun. Accompanied by ‘fries’ (again, little send-up, though truffle fries were also on the menu).

The meat of it

The presentation was good, and the burger delivered medium well (I was promised medium). That aside, the meat was juicy – a coarsely ground, loosely packed patty. Any seasoning of the meat itself vanished in the face of the punchy gorgonzola – an absolute umame-packed salt-fest coupling beautifully with the juicy meat.

The enriched bun holds up well, but further interest comes from the red onion/radicchio (leafy Italian salady thing) combo, which provides a slightly sour, slightly sweet, slightly crisp topping to the burger. As the only substantive flavour contrast to the savoury, the buttermilk bun doesn’t quite provide the necessary counterpoint – I think some sweet relish or gourmet Italian ketchup would have slightly tempered the saltiness of the dish and perhaps have rounded it out without tainting its Italian stylings – but it’s not bad. Good crumb, airy but sturdy, with a soft bite to it. Really quite enjoyable on the whole.

The fries – there’s something special about these. They’re more chips than fries in the American sense – thicker cut, skin-on. They have a delightful exterior, light and almost flakey, crisp with a delightful crunch. The inside – soft and floury, a perfect contrast. I didn’t even ask for ketchup – that’s how good they were. Perfectly seasoned.

The bread starter – which is really neither here nor there as it’s a burger review, but what the hey – lovely hefty brown slices, lightly grilled and served with a pot of rich olive oil and thick balsamic glaze. Very tasty!

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 4/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 4/5
Taste – 4/5
Sides – 5/5 – very special fries
Value – 4/5 – expensive but reasonable for the area – £14 for burger and fries, £4 for bread, central London drinks prices etc., plus service – £55 for two

Burger rating – 4/5 – you’re unlikely to be disappointed. An interesting twist on the convention.

The deets

The BFI’s next to the National Threatre on the South Bank. The Bar & Kitchen bit is round the back, on Belvedere Road. But you can cut through the main BFI from the South Bank itself! More here.