The initial big bang of quality burgers that emerged in London years back spoiled us. But in the years following, the flow of quality newcomers has ebbed rather than flowed. As some of the big hitters dipped in quality with expansion, newcomers heralded as the second coming of beefy Jesus have been disappointing. But this year it feels like the tide might be changing, as some of the new additions to London seem to be proving. Zephyr are one of them. Describing themselves as a 'California Kitchen', their message is very on point indeed: The name reminds us of a tune from L.A. band Red Hot Chili ..read more

We fucking loved Bad Sports. It served frozen margs, great fried chicken and even better cheeseburger tacos. It was one of our favourite tacos in London. But now it is gone. But as one taqueria door closes, another opens. And so the hunt for a new taco to effuse over takes us to a bunch of tortilla flippers, most recently to a tiny place hidden away in Wood Street. Homies On Donkeys is a tiny five-seat taqueria nestled incongruously within the eclectic trading space of the local indoor market. It is cute and homely: dimly lit apart from multi-coloured fairy lights around the kitchen, a zebra ..read more

Yep, we went back to Birmingham. We had a lovely stroll around the Custard Factory and a lovely dinner at the incredible Lasan. We also managed to squeeze in an early lunch at Brum street food legend, and previous alumni of the infamous Digbeth Dining Club, Meat Shack in their newly established bricks and mortar in the centre of town. We piled through the doors into a stone dead bar and applied our confused faces. The polite bar man informed us that Meat Shack was upstairs, but if we wanted a drink we had to order them from him. So we did. After a brief kerfuffle trying to find ice and glasse ..read more

We've had our eye on Rox for ages, ever since they were awarded Best Burger in the UK in 2015 by TripAdvisor and won London's Best Burger in a @newopenings Twitter poll in 2016 after a close final with Honest. (Coincidentally, Honest burger rank high in TripAdvisor as well). But they were all the way down in deepest Lewisham. We went down there for Street Feast one time and it took a fucking age to get home. Fool us once Lewisham… As our luck, and their success, would have it they recently opened a second location in Spitalfields, in the area near Petticoat Lane where a slew of places have ope ..read more

What with Chick 'n' Sours being one of our top fried chicken places in London, the idea of Carl Clarke and the crew opening a fast food version this summer had the backs of our knees sweating with excitement. And the place didn't disappoint, so we'll just wax lyrical about them real quick. The Straight Up Chik'n sandwich is arguably pound-for-pound the best chicken sandwich in London. A plump, wickedly moist thigh is covered in a really solid, not greasy, craggy, well seasoned coating. There are lashings of a lovely buttermilk and herb mayonnaise, which is creamy and ever-so-slightly tangy. Th ..read more

Instead of having to stand in an annoyingly busy market or festival or street food collective, Burger & Beyond have settled in to a residency in a nice, warm pub, even if it is in one run by craft beer sell-outs Camden. A bit of cover and a seat, a sampling of some of Anheuser-Busch InBev's more niche offerings, and a chance to see how the Beyond crew take to having a proper kitchen. Lovely. We have sung the praises of this cheeseburger before: It is a simple, savoury amalgam - letting the great flavour of the nicely-charred beef marry with a good amount of creamy, smokey mayo and onions ..read more

Famous Flames is the latest food iteration from them what brought you Stax Diner - fairly similar in concept but with chicken items like wings and tenders sharing menu prominence and the added nuance of flame-grilled, instead of flat-top griddled, burgers. A fast-casual eatery designed with the musical aesthetic of Camden, it is a small space, wood-clad and gig poster strewn space with a group table down the middle and some stool space up against the wall. It looks like a really clean country and western themed take-away.     But what really interested us was their use of Martin's po ..read more

American fast-casual burger chains continue to encroach upon our fair shores. But as branches of Shake Shack and Five Guys saturate the capital, other chains have decided to become more inventive with their choice of locations: Fatburger went for the tourists in Camden, Smashburger opened their first space in Milton Keynes and the stellar Steak n Shake set up shop in Chester. Who goes to Chester? For their first site, Floridian chain BurgerFi picked a shopping centre. In Wembley. Thank fuck their second location was tourist hotel sinkhole Bloomsbury. BurgerFi is somewhat a fusion of familiar ..read more

Good looking internet pictures. That is pretty much how people find out about places to go eat food now. Gone are the days of informative long-form reviews full of context and through evaluation. Something to make you ponder, occasionally chuckle, and consider whether you actually want to visit the place. These very sentences are probably redundant, unless we were to tack them on to an Instagram picture with a fuck ton of hashtags like a ridiculous and unnecessarily long word-beard. #burger #burgers #burgerporn #hamburger #cheeseburger #food #foodporn #yum #instafood #yummy #photooftheday #din ..read more

Japan isn't particularly lauded for burgers. It has a whole bunch of other amazing shit it does better than anyone else in the world, so why would it be? Our research yielded nothing that really warranted inclusion with the myriad of ramen, sushi, izakaya, shabu-shabu, yakiniku and okonomiyaki places that dominated our list. Except one. But we were never going to get there, it was in a small town called Takayama in the middle of the mountains. No chance. Until we saw that the trip itinerary had us exploring the Japanese Alps and travelling straight through the fucking place (pretty sure mentio ..read more