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.
Four Legs at the Plimsoll and Manna at Arcade were early smashburger pioneers, with Lagom, Bun & Sum, SMSH BN and the hyped Supernova all attracting legions of frenzied fans, converts from the fat patties which marked so many restaurant and fast-casual burger menus.
The two latest offerings to arrive in town are Junk and 7th Street; two imports arriving with a hurricane of hype, millions of video views and plenty of influencer guff.
The former is an import from France with the group operating four restaurants in Paris and a total of 11 joints across the channel. The latter is a cult-followed NYC chain, with 16 restaurants in New York and others in Washington D.C. and Long Island. While the pop-up in London has already closed, the company is rumoured to be looking for a permanent site in Soho. And so, to cut through the hype, we put them under the spotlight. Here’s the verdict.
Junk Burger
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Anyone who has been on social media in the past month will have seen Junk Burger, the highly hyped Soho spot on Old Compton Street. The space is minimal, austere even, with buffed stainless steel and a short menu that reads like a list of shirt sizes at Uniqlo. From small to XXL, each option indicates the number of smashed burger patties between the brioche buns: small has just one, XXL has a coronary-inducing five. There’s a truffle burger option too, and a crispy veggie burger, but really, the size-chart menu is designed for meat-loving types.
The order:
- Large burger (three patties)
- Truffle burger (two patties, truffle sauce)
The large house burger is pleasant enough, the brioche bun gives an overarching level of sweetness to balance the meatiness of those three patties which, along the edges, have maintained a meaty crunch. The cheese is soft and well melted, but the homemade sauce, while pleasing, offers only a mild pickle flavour and doesn’t exactly set my burger-loving heart soaring. It’s tasty, sure, but worth the hype? Not quite.
In normal circumstances, a truffle burger isn’t something I’d ever recommend. Truffle tends to be an add-on for the sake of it, and often it’s added with a heavy hand. But here, the funk of truffle is so mild, I wondered if I'd made some error in ordering. Those concerns were put to bed with my first bite, when the creamy truffle came to the front of the class. The balance of caramelised onions, truffle and only having two cheese-topped patties resulted in a far better burger; in fact, probably the best truffle burger I’ve ever had.
Verdict: Anyone opting for a five-patty smash-burger monster likely needs a straight jacket. The truffle burger is the real winner here.
7th Street
While the pop-up in Soho’s Truffle Burger location on Bateman street has ended, NYC’s best-loved smashburger group is apparently eyeing up a permanent site in London for the near future. Before they do, it’s important to know what’s what. The menu consists of fewer choices, with either the Truffle Burger X 7th Street collab and the classic 7th Street house burger on offer for the pop-up. In New York, there’s also a vegan ‘Impossible’ burger with a sweet potato bun; the menu is as straightforward as it comes.
The order:
- Truffle Burger X 7th Street collab
- 7th Street double cheeseburger
The truffl-ey collaboration burger, the team hastens to inform me, is made with truffle butter. It’s absurdly truffle-heavy on the nose, just as you’d expect, and similarly to Junk Burger, 7th Street balances this out with caramelised onions. The sweetness of that potato brioche bun and the caramelised onions is a lot — you’d need to love brioche buns to not find it overwhelming — but the juicy patties with that signature Maillard crisp are undeniably pleasing. Those patties don’t quite deliver the meatiness and umami needed to counteract the sweetness of the bun, and as the pickles are cut thinner to allow the truffle to come through, it means sweetness reigns supreme.
On the classic double cheeseburger, the ideal balance of meat, sweet, pickle and sauce is achieved. The pickles are cut thick, guaranteeing a level of briny acidity and crunch that is so needed from the experience to counter that potato bun. 7th Street knows simple is best and the classic double patty cheeseburger is exactly that, with crispy shards of caramelised beef poking out of the small burger and the cheese melting into the meat just so.
Verdict: While the truffle burger collab worked, the standout success is the double-patty cheeseburger with those thick cut pickles; proof that the simple things in life are best.
So which is best?
The hype is rife across both these burger joints and thoughts of the ‘best’ burger in town naturally surface. These spots might not claim that crown — for my money, Black Bear Burger always wins that race — but opt for the truffle burger at Junk and, when they return, the classic double cheeseburger at 7th Street, and you’ll not be disappointed. Overall, a tie, so long as you choose wisely.
