To celebrate its 50th anniversary in the UK, McDonald’s has overhauled its British menu, offering what they describe as “new and improved” versions of its best-selling burgers.
There are some 1,450 McDonald’s restaurants in the UK and Ireland, with the first opening half a century ago. To mark the occasion, the fast food giant has given themselves a gift: developing the recipes to make the biggest change to their core line of burgers in a generation.
Innovating on a burger with that much history, without ticking off the four million people who visit McDonald’s on a daily basis, isn’t easy. Instead of sweeping wholesale changes, the UK’s biggest restaurant chain has introduced a series of subtle tweaks that gently nudge the restaurants closer to the practices of cook-to-order restaurants.
Visiting the McDonalds HQ, head of menu Thomas O’Neill describes the development as “turning up the volume in your favourite TV show”. So has the ugly duckling become an elegant swan? Well, looks aren’t everything, but at first glance, the new burgers are certainly visually a lot more attractive.
What’s new?
The meat patties remain the same, but they are cooked at a slightly higher temperature for less time, with the view to lock in more juices and create more of the Maillard reaction.
On the Double Cheeseburger and the Quarter Pounder with cheese, finely diced onions are added straight after cooking, rather than at burger assembly, to add more flavour.
The new style of cooking also delivers a hotter burger and to reduce food waste (and burgers sitting out too long), restaurants are set to cook fewer burgers at once and hold them for 30 per cent less time. This means that while the patty itself is the same, customers should be enjoying a juicier, hotter, fresher version of it.
This has a knock-on effect on the sliced American cheese. It sits on top of the hotter patty, meaning it melts faster. The cheese is also taken out of the fridge earlier, meaning it’s at room temperature before being added to the burger itself, in an effort to ensure the cheese is stickier and gooier.
The bun is the other major change. Visually, it no longer looks like an anaemic’s armpit. Instead, the new bun looks glossy, like an upmarket brioche, and is toasted for slightly longer, a change which should also help the burgers hold their shape a little better while eating.
How does it taste?
In practice though, what do all these changes result in?
In lab settings (i.e. not at 1am, having sunk six pints) the side-by-side comparison is stark, but other than the visuals of the new buns, it’s hard to know if punters will truly notice the difference.
Across a sample of the Double Cheeseburger, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese and the Bic Mac, the old burgers felt dry, claggy, cloying, overly soft and delivered a lot of bread and very little by way of meaty burger flavour.
The new versions were better. Less doughy, better texture thanks to crunchier lettuce, and visually far more appetising, thanks to that bun. The meat itself did taste slightly juicer and more succulent, but despite a visibly more melted cheese slice on the Double Cheeseburger and the Quarter Pounder, it still felt dry.
In lab settings, the side-by-side comparison is stark, but it’s hard to know if punters will truly notice the difference.
Fans of the Big Mac should be happy. The revised version is overall a more pleasing burger and with all those tweaks, each bite delivered a more satisfying burger experience. The crunch of the lettuce, the toasted bun, the juicier meat, the pickle flavour and that legendary Big Mac sauce — unlike in the old, impossibly dry version which felt bland and insipid — each pillar of flavour that makes up this famed order was present in each bite.
The menu changes will come into effect across the UK throughout March, with the Big Mac, Quarter Pounder with cheese, Cheeseburger, Double cheeseburger and the Triple cheeseburger all getting the glow up.
Verdict? Eating the side-by-side versions demonstrated the differences very clearly. Will the average punter notice all that effort? Doubtful. But at least it looks prettier.
