Best Burger in London?

If you haven’t sussed it out by now, I love food.

I hold no bias; I love healthy steamed vegetables or naughty decedent desserts, I’m not fussed - I just love food.

One of my favourite dishes has to be a beef/cheese burger. I’ve been to many burger joints over the years: Red Iron, Byron, Bodeans, Atomic Burger (along with some rather sketchy places), but I have yet to find a really, truly mouth-watering, hearty, tasty burger.

As I live in London, finding any burger joint is quite easy, just type ‘Best Burger Joint in London’ in Google and the results are a plethora of reviews and suggestions of burger joints in and around London. So technically, it shouldn’t be THAT hard to find a truly fantastic, one to write home about, sort of burger, but alas, I’ve never found one…

UNTIL NOW.

Last month, I was lucky enough to win a competition with Burger Craft to have 1 free burger within one of their establishments. I’ll be honest, before this point, I had never heard of Burger Craft but with a quick Google search (stalker much?) I soon found out that within the Burger community (oh yes, there’s a burger community out there people) they were well known in the Burger world and also, highly praised. After a little more delving and drooling (the pictures of their burgers will make a veggie go weak at the knees) there was one burger of theirs that just kept popping up.

(Please excuse my language)

But the burger people are raving about is called…

The Juicy Bastard.

Burger Craft don’t seem to have their own ‘restaurants’ but instead are based within pubs in London. The closest pub to me was in The Green Man pub on Edgware Road (right beside the station).

So on Sunday 13^th April my sister and I drove up to Edgware Road on a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon on a burger quest!

The atmosphere of the pub was nice; it was quite small, but not overcrowded with furniture or people. There seemed to be a mix of young people, locals and tourists dotted around the pub making it an inviting place to sit and eat at.

My sister ordered the Bacon, Bacon, Bacon burger -  a beef burger with sandridge streaky bacon, crispy bacon dust, American cheese and homemade bacon jam – Bacon galore!

But of course, I went for the big daddy - The Juicy Bastard - Two beef burgers, Double American cheese, lambs lettuce, tomato, and smokey BBQ sauce.

If I hadn’t read the reviews about the Juicy Bastard burger I would have actually ordered the same as my sister, but I’m so glad I didn’t.

The hint is within the name, Juicy. This beautiful burger is undeniably juicy; the meat is rich and full of flavour but it’s lightly pressed together which means it’s not too heavy and filling.

The cheese, though American, actually tasted a little bit mature which was a lovely surprise as it added more taste to the meat patties. The added bonus is that there's plenty of it - yum!

The Smokey BBQ sauce wasn’t too sweet like many BBQ sauces I’ve tried before, but it tasted more like a BBQ jam, lighter and less sweet, which I personally loved.

The bun was soft and lightly sweet with a perfect consistency and it didn’t lose its thickness or become soggy. Usually, when I eat burgers I leave one piece of the bun as I usually find it adds no flavour and fills me up too quickly and usually soaks up all the goodness and cheese, but this bun was perfection and a real necessity to ‘experience’ this burger.

My only negative about the burger was that I asked for mine  to be cooked medium/rare and my sister asked for hers to be cooked medium, but both came out medium to well done. The meat wasn't tough and as I stated before, the burger was still juicy as heck, so it didn’t necessarily affect my burger too much.

Both our burgers were ridiculously tasty and I intend to visit The Green Man time and time again; the service was quick and friendly, the atmosphere was nice, there was plenty of seating and of course, the food was delicious. 

Overall, the Juicy Bastard burger was incredible and easily the best I’ve ever tried. For £10 you get a succulent meal, that's hearty and down right tasty.

The Green Man is only around a ten minute drive from the Westfield’s in Shepard’s Bush, so I would suggest if you’re ever in the area, to get down to this wonderful little hidden gem and order one amazing Juicy Bastard.