The Best Burger

Connoisseur Jamie Younger, shares his obsession to find the finest burger…and the second best

It was a decision born only weeks earlier and I am relishing (no pun intended, or perhaps realised yet) the opportunity, nay creating the opportunities, to indulge in my personal pursuit. It had been suggested that I needed a bit more focus and less fixation; the default choice, obvious, boring even and I acknowledge that perhaps I wasn’t taking it seriously (I am now, mark my words!) and was choosing more for the groans of those in attendance than those of my belly. My own gauntlet had been snagged on a branch like a pair of mittens but I am thankful of those places whose creations reawakened my desire, my challenge – to eat the best burger.

Gastro pub

That is my simple quest, the one which lay smothered under inch-inch thick pub burgers, Stilton drowning my interest. There are obvious places you’re going to get a bad burger (the Frisbee-like, yellow battered discs twirled out of chip shops north of the M6 for example) but it’s the fare offered at public houses countrywide with which you play Russian roulette. Filling they almost undoubtedly are, a door stop patty sandwiched by a door stop bun, but the eating requires dexterity about the jaw I just don’t possess.  A knife and fork should be out of bounds where a burger is concerned but without them you’d be citing for GPH (Gastro Pub Harm). The last pub-bound burger I had, I sheepishly asked if they could flatten the patty down before cooking it. I know.

Meatfeast

Away from rusticities though, there are great burgers to be found, places I hold responsible for the upturn in both my enthusiasm and waistline. The popularity of American-style meatfests serving pulled pork, short ribs and Buffalo wings as well as the increase in local independent pop-ups, be they van or otherwise, indicates that honest but well done comfort food is a winner. Simplification is the principal ingredient; no petticoat of salad, just gherkins, ketchup and mustard with a thin, rare patty or two slipped into a fist-sized brioche bun.

A revelation

Having made the discovery, I fear that I have peaked to soon. My abandon abandoned any idea of reasonable consumption from the outset, yet there is somewhere I keep returning to get my palate pattied and it’s dangerously close to where I live. I first came across it by chance at an open air screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel and it was a distraction as much as a revelation. Extolling the virtues to all within spitting distance (quite literally), it marked the start of a wonderful evening before I settled down for the main event. Except I didn’t settle down as I was thinking about having another burger.  

The second best burger

Admittedly I became so engrossed in the labyrinthine plot I missed my opportunity as the shutters came down before the film finished, but a stake has been claimed. I’ve had other burgers since but none as satisfyingly, drippingly delicious. So as not to entertain another period of burger boredom I’m refocusing my challenge – to eat the second best burger.