Marks & Spencer café, Covent Garden, WC2

Of all the things that M&S are renowned for, burgers wouldn’t feature particularly high up the list – but perhaps this shouldn’t be the case.

After waiting for less than a minute to order, and then another two for the food to be prepared, my burger arrived – fast food indeed. On first inspection, the meal was looking good: a foccacia bun encasing an amply sized meat patty, topped with fresh tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise and mozzarella. It wasn’t just a good looking sandwich either: the burger meat was well seasoned and gave a good impression of containing real meat. The salad and the bun were fresh, which prevented the sandwich from seeming soggy and stodgy; on the whole, a product that was much closer to the gourmet end of the spectrum than the fast-food end.

The highlight of the burger meal, which also included a soft drink, was undoubtedly the chips. They were chunky, in the chip-shop style, not over-salted and genuinely tasted of potato. The only negative for M&S, really, was the cafeteria style setting which, although clean, was uninspiring. I would probably suggest that take-out is the best option.

Overall, a decent sized burger with a generous portion of chips and a small drink came to £4.95. I think it is fair to say that this wasn’t just a burger, it was an M&S burger, and a very fine one too.

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Burger King’s latest site upgrade? Nice, but we’re still not sure a virtual burger will do it for us. Though it looks like the fastest way to find fast food if you have that emergency bap craving.

www.bk.com

Fulham Broadway, London
http://www.fineburger.co.uk/

With the promise of a much greater choice then your average burger bar, and a good flame grill sizzling in sight, it’s easy to hope for too much here. FBC is another me-too following in the footsteps of GBK, but manages to fall short. The ingredients are there, but just not with the attention to detail to pull it off: great flame grill – but the rare burgers came in ‘blue’, lazily turned, barely singed on one side (and the meat not good enough for a steak tartar by a long way); good baps with generous doses of grain showed the buyers were trying hard – but served very cold on the underside and no attempt to properly toast them (classic for mass production straight-from-the-fridge set ups); tomato relish so mass produced and cheap it’s really worth skipping. That said, the kids’ mini burger selections looked fun and a cool way to make an adventure out of a burger, the wine selection was surprising, and the range of lamb and chicken burgers is refreshing. The ‘breadless burger’ came up trumps with a good salad and oil if you asked. Overall? Many of the right ingredients, but sloppily executed leaving us sure to head over the way to Nando’s the next time we needed a protein fix before the movies. Like a bright kid at school who can’t be bothered to get off the couch: ‘C- …underperforming, wasting, could try harder.‘

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Do you just love hamburgers? Do you crave a great burger and fries in London? Does your mouth water at restaurant reviews of top London restaurants when they turn their energy to the challenge of creating the perfect burger and fries? We love burgers so much we started writing about them when we began our quest to find the perfect hamburger. We hope you find the reviews useful and if you want to add yours then tell us, here…

Review your restaurant on the search for the perfect burger

Burgers have a pretty poor image because it’s hard to untangle them from the words ‘fast food’. Good food is really hard to do ‘fast’; sure, you can flip a fillet steak for a minute either side on a hot grill and it’s great, but ‘fast’ normally means ‘cheap’ and ‘cheap’ normally means poor quality, and poor quality means you don’t want to go there! So ponder this: 30 years ago the British Sausage had a deserved reputation for being ‘cheap’ - remember they contained more other stuff than meat (a pretty sorry state of affairs for a meat product)? But then came the gourmet sausage with everything from high pheasant and wild boar to apple and blackberries. It may be a while before we’re having a ‘Angus Big Mac with Port & Stilton sauce’, but we can’t help think someone’s missing a trick.

Mexico City

Deep in the Polanco district of Mexico City you’ll find one of the swankiest hotels in Latin America, equipped with one of the funkiest restaurants. The rooftop terrace is the perfect place to enjoy your burger and fries; and the cocktail bar downstairs the perfect place to go as the party gets going.

Credit where it’s due: the new M burger may not be ready to knock Chez Gerard, Notting Grill or Natural Burger company just yet, but the world’s biggest burger chain is raising the bar.

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Brompton Road, London, SW5

Awesome. A gem of a grill that’s just opened in West London. It’s only one of a pair and based on the first three visits there will be many more on the way. These guys will live and die by their burgers so the meat is excellent, but their owner has gone out of his way to source some great bread (light, moist ciabatta) and fool around with some interesting sides (not sure the courgette fries will be for everyone, but it’s cool to see options like that). Thing is that their super hot charcoal grill really sears the burger in the way you can only dream of. This could be the Ultimate rare burger in London. And where they also excel is on the dips: there’s half a dozen home made dressings that really are made on site – my fave is the stilton, but don’t dismiss the bbq or the tomato; both outstanding.

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Holland Park Avenue, London, W8

A classic London stalwart. Tootsie’s was a regular weekend treat of mine as a kid and I’ve still got a soft spot for this place. Generous burgers, heaps of relish, and a suitably tempting array of breakfast options are enough to make you loose a Sunday morning, afternoon and evening if you’re not careful.

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Leicester Square, London W1

Not a good day for the chains. Hamburger Union has developed a pretty solid reputation, but it’s only as strong as their last customer experience, and today was a pretty poor experience all round. How any manager can think of getting away with grumpy and rude waitressing staff is beyond me, even if they rely on a casual and not repeat trade. It only needs one sour apple to turn the keg bad, and maybe that’s why there was a chronic inability to get orders right and a reluctance to apologise. In the world of burgers the difference between the well-dones and rares is a gulf and this branch gets struck off the quest for the Ultimate Burger for sure.

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Floral Street, London, WC2

Lamburgers. It just doesn’t stack up. However you try and approach it, lamb and burger just don’t got together. Masala Zone is a gem among cheap eats in London, and since they set up they’ve successfully redesigned people’s expectations of ‘going for a curry’. A rich choice of South Indian Thalis that if you have even the slightest interest in Indian food you simply HAVE to try. But burgers are a step too far. Great on value but it just doesn’t work.

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Rupert Street, London, W1

With about a dozen steaks on the menu, this French chain has earned its reputation for knowing its Onglets from its onions. If you’re after steak then head straight to the rump if you’re hungry, the fillet if you’re feeling indulgent or the good old fashioned Onglet for a French classic. So given the heritage you’d be expecting a breakthrough moment in burgers: be prepared for disappointments though. Benefit of the doubt; I went back three times before logging on and alas it was always a let down. The thing is that they should be way better than this; with more cooking options and slick servings – but instead there’s a basic bun, mediocre cooking and unpredictable service. Serious let down!

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Good, bad, awesome or so despairingly awful you’re in therapy from an evening out: let us know, and thanks to the web, let everyone else know too. Submit your review and we'll post it here on the burger blog. Comments are unmoderated, but posts but remember to be polite to other contributors and keep on topic. Try to write over 50 words and include the name of the restaurant in the title. Copy and paste the scale below to share your ratings and include the full address of the restaurant.

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