It’s clear London has fallen in love with smashburgers — those thin, crispy smashed patties, cooked hot and hard on a solid top, pressed deeply into the surface to maximise the Maillard reaction.
This approach to patties is a sort of science hack of cooking, chemically engineered for deliciousness. The process is the browning of foods which turns amino acids and sugars into melanoidins. Those in turn have hundreds of compounds which give a distinct set of flavours and aromas. With some foods, it’s not a desirable result. But with smashburgers, all that makes for a meatier mouthful.
