Five Guys - Leicester Square

What's the thing about burgers at the moment? There seems to be a recognition that burgers don't have to be limited to the lowest common denominator or differentiation based solely on sticking an entire roast dinner between two buns. As such, premium burger brands such as Byron, Ed's and Five Guys have made significant in-roads into the UK with their attempts to re-educate the British view of burgers away from a 99p, microwavable grey rubber bullet that is only legally defined as edible. 

According to the local twitter-talk we are about to get a Five Guys in MK and everyone was talking about how amazing they were dharling. So as Mrs P and I walked past Leicester Square, the place pulled us in with their beefy tractor beam. That smelled of burgers.

Firstly, a quick note on the Five Guys concept - think Maccy D's serving Byron burgers. Many people will have issues with that description and yes, it does do Five Guys a slight disservice, however getting a decent bun at the speed of a dirty burger has got to be a good thing however it happens. Next a note on the menu - you've got a big burger, little burger or hotdog. That's it. True, you can choose cheese, bacon or both but if you're looking for a rodeo b-rex royale burger served your way with extra special sauce then jog on by my friend.

So let's crack on, after we got through the queue outside to join the queue inside (mmm, interesting concept), we had free nuts. Free nuts is good but what blew my mind is imagining how the Sam Hill they managed to roast and salt the things inside the shells. Perhaps there is probably a perfectly understandable process that allows this black magic to happen but damn, inside the shells people.

Then we ordered two cheese burgers, one drink (refillable - we're not paying for two of those, Mrs P and I share everything, even germs) and a regular fries. All extras* were free to add if we wanted, but we stuck to grilled onions to keep the purist form and get as much burger as possible. Speaking of which:

Wrapped in some weird not-quite-foil these burgers were cooked to order and delivered at a pace. Five Guys bang the drum loudly for the quality of their burgers and rightly so, these were not your homogenous chain product or even the grease dripping pre-formed pre-frozen burger pellets served from your local burger van. These were the real deal. 

Oh Yeah. All burgers are served well done (although Mrs P's was more medium), course and juicy, the cheese was gooey, creamy and probably very bad for you and the ratio of mayo to ketchup was bang on. Basically the whole thing screamed STOP TAKING PHOTOS AND EAT ME. So naturally I obliged, in short, this was the best burger I've eaten in a very (very) long time. But what about the chips?

We went for the cajan spice but I wouldn't recommend it going forward. These are not award  winning fries and the spicy dust didn't hide that. They had salt and proper Sarson's vinegar on the side as well as more ketchup for dipping and I think that would have been my preferred option; keep it simple. Particularly because the 'regular' portion consisted of the above cup plus a scoop:

More than enough for two. For drinks I was particularly ecstatic to see my old friend the multi-flavour-multi-drink machine back in action, these things are awesome!

Final judgement then -  the highest compliment I can give the Five Guys burger is that it is now the standard burger from which all others will be judged. If it doesn't reach this level then it isn't worth your money. There is room for Five Guys and Byron, for me they don't directly compete. Is Five Guys better than Byron then? Well, I'm not sure about that, but that is only because there is no 'best'. Byron are going for a sit down restaurant vibe while Five Guys look at the gourmet fast-food corner. Both have a place and it's great that we are starting to get picky about the better parts of the American culinary habits we bring over. Looking forward to the MK opening - bring it on!

www.fiveguys.co.uk




*extras such as: lettuce, mayo, ketchup, mustard, pickles, tomatoes, grilled mushrooms, grilled onions, raw onions, peppers, relish, jalapeños, HP sauce, BBQ sauce, hot sauce. So yeah, we kept it light.