- Wow.
That's unlike any burger I've had before.
- Hey guys, I'm Harry.
- And I'm Ju.
- And today we're on a mission
to find the best burger in London.
- We've done our research,
we've had to narrow it down to four places,
one which is really big on Instagram,
another one which is highly rated on TripAdvisor,
and two of the critics' favorites.
- We're starting our journey in Wimbledon, west London.
Let's go check out the first place.
- Yeah.
- [Harry] What we're looking for in an ideal burger
is for the patty to be flavorful and juicy,
the toppings that work together,
and we want a good solid bun that's strong enough
to hold it all together.
Our first stop is Dip & Flip,
which is famous for its unusual pairing
of beef burgers with a side of gravy.
So Dip & flip started up, actually, September, 2013.
Our signature burger would be a Dip & Flip beef,
which is a cheeseburger with a beef patty
and then you have slices of roast beef or lamb
dipped in gravy on top of the patty.
It's got white cabbage slaw, pickles,
mustard, and ketchup in there in a brioche bun.
And then to add to that,
you've got some really beefy gravy on the side.
So normally you'd pick your burger up,
you'd dip it in the gravy,
or if you want to go really hardcore,
then you will literally pick your gravy bowl up
and you'll pour it all over the top of your burger.
And then the beefiness of the gravy just adds
a little bit more of a meat flavor to the whole experience.
- So this is the Dip & Flip beef.
One thing that will probably tell you
all you need to know about this burger
is that they serve it to you with a roll of kitchen towel.
I've never seen a burger that's been
so wet-looking when it's arrived.
Right. Let's dip and flip.
Okay.
(Ju laughs)
So romantic-looking.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
That's unlike any burger I've had before.
Ah. (laughs)
Okay, Ju, give me the first impressions
having tasted the Dip & Flip.
My first impression of the bun
is that it's really fluffy on the inside.
It's quite like a closely baked brioche bun.
So it's got a really nice crisp on the outside.
Pickles in there are nice,
kind of add a sharpness and a great texture to it.
But I think, yeah, just the overwhelming feeling
is that it's, the gravy is very meaty.
And I'm loving that, absolutely loving that.
So the burger that they do here is a smashes patty.
Which is actually not that common in the UK.
It's more of an American thing.
You kind of associate it with Shake Shack,
which is where you kind of put this ball of meat
on the hub, smash it down really thin.
What it all comes down to is they've built
a burger which can withstand the amount
of moisture that comes from the gravy.
And I think the smashes patty kind of helps that.
Because you get the crust, you kind of keep the texture
and it doesn't all just blend into a gooey mess.
It does actually still stand up
in the patty, which is great.
After indulging in our gravy-covered breakfast burger,
we head on a train from southwest London
to central London to try the Veni-Moo,
which is a venison and beef burger
from Scottish restaurant, Mac and Wild.
We sell more Veni-Moos than anything else.
That is definitely the most popular item on our menu.
Originally, it was just game and wild meat
that I did that was exclusive.
So I thought let's create a kind of gateway burger,
having dry-aged beef and wild venison.
And I don't like melding them together and making one patty.
So I like to have two individual patties.
And some caramelized onions, bit of cheese.
And then we've got a special house sauce
that I accidentally created called, Red Jon.
So that's red currant jelly and Dijon mustard.
I mean, that's the kind of sweet,
savory element that you get on the base.
And our customers, they do love it.
They keep on coming back.
Everyone keeps coming to have the Veni-Moo.
This is a Veni-Moo.
While we were seeing this being cooked,
we saw that there were caramelized onions
going on top of the venison patty
and beef patty on the grill, and then steamed,
and that is what I can smell.
First thing, coming off the top of this burger
is this gorgeous smell of caramelized onions.
And it's also, I think, a little bit in the bap.
Because the bap we saw toasted on the grill.
So we can actually see that it's got, soaking up
the juices from everything that was on there before,
like a really, really nice kind of toasted,
caramelized scent coming off this burger,
which smells so good.
I mean, visually, this thing looks amazing.
It's kind of like everything a Big Mac
wishes it could be and look like.
This is taken to another level,
in terms you've got the double patty going on,
those smashed patties which are nice and thin and crispy,
cheese just kind of oozing out it.
And, as Ju said, you can just see the flex
of the jelly as well, and caramelized onions.
It just looks really great.
Mm.
Ah, h--- yeah.
The first thing that I taste
just inside of the bun here
is a gorgeous jam
taste.
It's really great that there's no tomato in this burger,
that I can just taste the jam just on top of the bun
and also mixed in with mustard.
It's kind of like a really nice,
you know like a jam roly-poly you used to have as a kid?
A roly-poly is a traditional jam-filled
British pudding and is prepared
in a similar manner to a Swiss roll.
Utterly delicious.
That really satisfying childhood taste of jam,
really pure and very delicious, nice.
And it's not making the burger
too soggy as well, which I'm liking.
Yeah, the sweetness of the jam is really useful.
Because, obviously, there's a lot
of richness in this burger.
You've got the cheese, you've got the meat,
you've got the quite gamey venison.
So to have a bit of sweetness
to kind of cut through that is really nice.
For your first taste of venison, what did you think?
Honestly, it's good.
It's mostly beefy in kind of taste and texture.
What you're used to from just a beef burger.
Maybe with a bit more of a kind of, I say richness.
And it's not heavy, but it's definitely got more,
kind of, I guess iron-y flavor that you're used to
from really, from real red meat, but it's nice.
Because the first thing that I heard
about it was, okay, it's game.
So I think that it's gonna be quite heavy,
and I think that it's gonna be very filling and very rich.
But it was very light and, like you said again, iron-y.
It's good, I actually like the taste of venison, yeah.
Next, we took a short walk
to our third stop, Burger & Beyond.
It's a recently opened burger restaurant,
which had a humble beginning as a street-food store.
I think we sort of knew
that we could go for a restaurant when we saw,
of course, great feedback from the customers.
We knew all of them sort of loved what we were doing.
And that's when we knew to take it to the next step.
So the BBB is our Bacon Butter Burger.
It consists of 45-day-aged beef patty, pancetta bacon.
Double American cheese.
Our burnt-butter mayo, and some pickled onion.
I think people love the BBB, it's just 'cause
it's just a really well-executed burger.
It's very simple, it's just a well-done bacon cheeseburger.
The meat cooked to perfection, the bun toasted perfectly.
And obviously, with the added burnt-butter mayo,
it just really adds an amazing kick.
And then the crisp of the pancetta,
which also adds a really nice texture.
And it just makes it, yeah,
just a really, really good burger.
The burgers are some of the best
in London I've had, to be honest.
They're perfectly cooked, the bun is great.
And when you do this, and all of that lovely sauce
just comes out, it's just the messiest,
dirtiest, best-tasting burger I've had.
First bacon burger of the day.
So just look at this, it's really photogenic.
I mean, you could just picture that on Instagram.
It's exactly how it looks on Instagram, this looks gorgeous.
See the slice of American cheese in it,
see the crispy bacon on top,
and then this burnt-butter mayo at the bottom of it.
Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is,
like Ju said, it's very photogenic.
If you kind of imagine what a cheeseburger should look like,
this is probably what comes to mind.
If you had a cartoon cheeseburger,
it would look something like this.
It checks all the boxes, visually.
Hoping it tastes as good.
Mm. Oh my God.
Oh my God.
(groans in pleasure)
- That sound effect.
(both mumble)
It looks juicy from the outside but, as you can see
by the amount of sauce all over my face,
everything in there is just dripping.
There's some really great oils coming off
the bacon and on the burger.
There's a nice, melting load of cheese in there.
The mayo is seeping into the back of the burger
just here, so you can see it's retaining its shape.
It's not quite collapsing yet.
But it's liquid, and it still smells
that salty smell of the pancetta.
And you get a big bite of that, so good.
Yeah, that's so good.
And the crunch of the onions as well.
I just needed a moment to compose myself there.
That was just like, that's really, really good.
I got the burnt-butter mayo.
It does taste really buttery, very luxurious.
The saltiness from the bacon as well works really well.
It's like you say, this is the first
bacon burger we've had today.
Bacon usually goes hand in hand with cheeseburgers.
And this is just a fantastic example of this.
It's smoky, it's salty, it's a but crispy.
All just works really, really well.
I would divorced for this burger.
I'm not married, but I would marry someone
just to leave them for this burger.
Oh, God, just, hello.
We head to our fourth
and final stop, Honest Burgers.
They dominate TripAdvisor in London,
taking eight out of the 10 spots on its best burgers list.
The honest burger is our, it was our first burger
we ever made that was like, we'd felt it ticked every box.
And it's just a very simple bacon cheeseburger.
And so we start with lettuce and pickles on the base,
which is a nice bit of crunch,
and the pickles give you a nice bit of sharpness.
And then it's our Honest Burger patty
with a mild slice of cheddar.
Again, cheddar's just got much more flavor than say,
an American cheese, so you get something from it.
It's not just kind of a texture.
And then nice, crispy bit of dry-cured
smoked streaky bacon on top, so you've just got
a nice, salty kind of hit, and bacon makes pretty much
everything taste better, we think.
And then a sweet relish, which works
really, really well with the cheese
and just kind of cuts through a lot of the fat.
So the reason I like Honest Burgers
is they ask you how you like it cooked.
So you can have it how you want it.
I like that it comes with a brioche bun.
It's a decent burger.
We're on our last stop of the day.
We're here at Honest Burgers.
We're feeling a bit, yeah, kind of feeling fine?
Yeah, not feeling as bad as I feared I might.
The good thing is that, I think burgers
are one of my favorite foods,
so I'm actually kind of still looking forward
to eating this, even though
it's the fourth one of the day.
Yeah, so I mean, it's not a smashed patty,
but it's still reasonably thin
and it's still cooked on the flattop,
and we did kind of see it getting a nice crust on the top.
Actually gonna make a cheese judgment
on this one as well, 'cause obviously
we've tried burgers with slices of American cheese,
or we've tried an American cheese mix,
which has been kept at a really high temperature.
This one's got some British cheddar in it,
and, being from the West Country,
I think I'm gonna really enjoy that.
Mm.
That is a decent slice of cheese in there.
It's not too...I mean it's held together really well.
The bun has a nice texture to it
'cause it's been toasted, but it's not too claggy.
It's not too brioche-y.
The meat inside there is just excellent quality.
I really get the, I get the red onion relish.
That's really nice, it's got a sweetness to it
from the caramelization that you get from that.
Pickles as well, again, just classic ingredient
in terms of the saltiness and the crunch that they offer.
Yeah, I think the bacon is the right
side of crispy as well.
Yeah, I wouldn't say that it's too chewy at all.
It's just a really good bacon-y taste,
and with the caramelized onions as well.
This burger is both kind of very meaty
and very sweet at the same time.
A very easy to eat burger, it's good.
Obviously we're here to talk about the burger,
not the fries, but this is the first burger
we've had that actually comes with fries by default.
Which is good, you feel like you
get more of a meal for your money.
Yeah, it's rightly salted, smell great, taste great.
Now it's time to decide
which burger is the best of the best.
It's a lovely, sunny day here at Tower Bridge.
Now, clearly some time has passed
since we last went filming.
But, well, it's time now to pick
the best burger in London, or what we thought
was the best burger in London.
One, two, three.
Burger & Beyond.
We've got a winner!
It's the clear winner, a clear winner.
A unanimous vote.
So why did you pick Burger & Beyond?
So the short answer is that
since I tried the BBB at Burger & Beyond,
I haven't stopped thinking about it.
That is just kind of everything that I want from a burger.
It had those smashed patties with a crisp
on the outside, the juiciness inside,
melted cheese, and that burnt-butter mayo sauce,
was just out of this world, it was honestly incredible.
What about you?
All right, so I picked the burger
because it was just juicy as hell.
It was so juicy, it had butter dripping all over it.
And I feel like the actual quality of the patty itself
was the tastiest one that I tried.
I saw the stall at Glastonbury Festival
after we went filming, and I just told everybody,
you have to go in queue for this burger,
you have to go in queue for this burger.
And honestly, if I had dropped it on the floor
at the festival, I would've picked it up
and kept eating it, 'cause it was genuinely that good.
- If you guys know how dirty Glastonbury Festival can get,
you know how high praise that is.
So we've crowned the Burger & Beyond's BBB
as the best burger in London, but that's just our opinion.
What do you guys think?
If you have a favorite burger in London, let us know.