The one with pink burgers and triple cooked chips…
It feels so long ago that we were in the grip of a burger craze. I mean, I know it wasn’t yesterday, but it feels like a whole other Manchester, when we were obsessed with burgers – brown wooden doors hiding burger bars, thick patties, searching for perfection. We had plain burgers, pink burgers, loaded American style burgers that you could barely fit in your mouth. We’ve seen restaurants come and go.
Some have stuck because they do what they do well, you know what to expect, and they don’t compromise on flavour. And we’ve seen some go because they weren’t as good, or perhaps because we just had too many burgers.
So Honest Burgers making the move up to Manchester might have raised an eyebrow or two. We’re the home of Almost Famous, and Solita. Do we need another burger joint?
That’s not for me to say, but given Jay Rayner has talked about their chips being akin to an addictive drug, it would be rude of me not to check them out, right? And when the two founders, Phil Eeles and Tom Barton invite me in for a nosey, and a masterclass on meat and potatoes… I was going to go.
All in the name of research, obviously.
So, let’s start at the beginning. Tom and Phil set up the business back in 2011. Initially starting as an antidote to the standard ‘festival burger’, they both admit, they’ve learned a lot on their journey to now. With their savings (around £3000) they invested everything they had in a fryer, and a griddle, (and meat and potatoes) and started serving burgers.
Their big break came in the form of Brixton Market, and a helping hand from co-founder Dorian Waite. Matching what Phil and Tom did from an investment perspective, and bringing his own background knowledge in hospitality, they opened their first site. As you’d expect, it was very much a DIY set up. Friends and family helped financially, and physically. Tom and Phil laid the floor and put in the extraction fan, whilst others hit the flea markets for tables and chairs, and wielded paintbrushes.
What they didn’t compromise on, was their process. The meat and potatoes. And as both explained, that hasn’t really changed.
Starting with the meat. They’re very proud of the meat that they use. Their burgers use a combination of chuck and rib cap, sourced from the UK – primarily Scottish farms. They use grass fed beef, and care so much about the beef and the process of making their burgers, that they now have their own butchery in London.
Unlike a lot of burgers, they don’t mince their beef like most companies, they chop it using a bowl chopper. They believe this leads to a better texture of burger. And they serve it pink (unless you ask for it otherwise), something else they’re very proud of. In order to be able to do this, they have to follow the rules set down by the Food Standards Agency. These came into force in around 2016, and are so strict, many companies simply can’t afford to adhere to them (they don’t have their own butchers for a start). Phil and Tom believe that this is so much a part of what they do, it was worth the investment.
Their potatoes too, require a similar amount of care and attention. They triple cook their chips, which led to curious issues in the early days. Potatoes are harvested and stored over the winter. As they are stored, their chemistry changes, their starches, slowly turn to sugars, which meant even triple cooking didn’t create the chip they wanted. They now have a potato scientist (the dad of an employee) who advises them on the best potatoes to use throughout the year, and the majority of their potatoes are sourced from the UK, and kept in temperature controlled storage, to avoid the same issues occurring again.
Even now, the process is labour intensive, but they refuse to compromise, as it’s simply part of what they do.
And what they do is simple, but done well. They even have their own gin created by Psychopomp down in Bristol (and it’s a bit delish). What they did admit is that they’ve had to up their gravy game – and introduced us to their bacon and beef gravy.
Yeah, it’s good. I might even dunk my burger in it next time.
Overall? Honest Burgers keep it simple. They have a small core range of burgers, including one that’s a nod to an American style. Good flavours, good textures – I’m not sure I’d go as far as Mr Rayner did in praise of their chips, I’m not sure they’re crystal meth level addictive. But in a city that’s full of heavily laden, saucy burgers, this is a return back to something far more uncomplicated.
