“With access to excellent British beef, cheeses and bread, somebody with an entrepreneurial streak here in London should be rocking my ex pat socks off with awesome burgers at cheap prices. Alas no one has yet. Or, at least, I ain’t come across ‘em yet. And I surely have been looking.”
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“This thing was a fucking revelation. Roam aren’t scared to shift from burger tradition and introduce a few unorthodox ingredient combinations, and frankly they nail it every time.”
[2011 HONOURS LIST] Simon’s Best Burger Pick / Roam Artisan Burgers / San Francisco, California
Read the full review. Mind that drool.
“I’m practically gushing about this place, but honestly, it was the burger of my trip. You know a burger joint is good when a queue forms at 11.30 in the morning.”
[2011 HONOURS LIST] Rob’s Best Burger Pick / Little Big Burger / Portland, Oregon
Read the full review. Go on.
Happy New Year and all that everyone. Hopefully, like us, you are all ready to belt out another corker of a year. But before we get into eating ALL the burgers, we’ll just bend your ear briefly about what floated our two-seater speedboat in 2011.
1. Portland, Oregon
Despite Rob only spending two nights in this city, and being too depressingly full most of the time to sample all of the food, Portland is a no-brainer to be in the Top 5.
The place is laid back to the point of horizontal, full of cool little neighbourhoods that all offer something unique, and a heartland of micro brewers. It also boasts the largest and most diverse selection of street food we’ve seen yet.
All available space in downtown is lined with every cuisine you could want in your lunch hour. Rob still rues not having time to get the PB&J fries from Potato Champion before he left.
It also was the home of one of Rob’s favourite burgers of 2011, Little Big Burger. And Seattle is only an hour away! Screw Thailand and all that Far East bullshit, if you want a holiday, go visit here. And if you can’t, we recommend you watch season two of Portlandia, coming in January.
2. Epic Meal Time
To say our videos are a little bit of a homage to these guys is an understatement. Although they technically came into being in 2010, they really hit their stride in 2011, getting totally crunk and serving up some truly awe-inspiring meal ideas - a mantra we are 100% behind. It’s mouth-watering and gross in equal measures, but wow, is it entertaining. Am I right, hater? Check out their fast food lasagne.
3. MEATliquor and Lucky Chip exist
Listen up London. Stop fucking whining about how long you have to queue for, how you have to eat outside in the cold or that it’s too dark and the music is too loud and, oh no, is that rain I felt?
Just appreciate the fact that two of the best burgers in London are now so readily available. Need we remind you of the dark days of the past, when you’d actually go to a Gourmet Burger Kitchen because you didn’t really have any other option.
Yeah, you remember that. So shut up.
- Our Meatliquor preview (we’re working on the next version)
- Our Lucky Chip coverage
4. Eat Street / Long Table / London Street Food Getting It Together
It was a few years coming, but London has finally started to catch up with Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Austin, Chicago and other places we like to visit.
Sadly, London’s tyrannical regulations made the American ideal of ‘proper’ food trucks literally impossible. But with a plucky Dunkirk spirit, Londoners have found a way. Eat Street is probably the best example of bringing together different foods for the Everyman, and without it we wouldn’t have found the meatoric rise that is the Rib Man and his bottled Holy Fuck, but late runner Long Table also proved that it was possible in East London. Kinda.
And there’s a bunch more we haven’t tried yet either, so 2012 is going to get us down to North Cross Road market and Brockley Market amongst many others. This is exciting.
5. @FredSmith_
Fred is head chef at the Admiral Codrington. He made three of our favourite London burgers of 2011. We were lucky to bump into him purely by chance at the Superette popup. He hosted a Burger New Year’s Eve party. He’s a lovely bloke. He shares an incredible passion for detail in burger preparation. He’s a reason to actually go to LOLCHELSEA. We hope our bromance flourishes in 2012.
Thanks for the all support we’ve had in the few short months we’ve been doing B/A. You guys rule.
The final nail in fine dining’s coffin is that it’s simply not cool anymore. The food world is a newly hip place to be, full of facial-haired young gunslingers, whether behind the stoves, creating the artisan cheeses and saucissons or scanning the menus. They’re setting themselves up in funky mobile kitchens like food mavericks the Eat St collective in King’s Cross, or opening speakeasy-style dives such as Meat Liquor with its perfect burger obsession, or leaving city life like James Swift, creator of Trealy Farm’s silky British charcuterie. They’re chefs like Stevie Parle or Young Turks Isaac McHale and James Lowe, working every hour God sends in the pursuit of good food.
Wonderful stuff from Marina.