Covent Garden Meat Market

Second stop in my travels around London was to Covent Gardens Meat Market. This London burger outlet is hidden behind painted read and black windows on the first floor of the Jubilee Market Hall in Covent Garden. 

It's a little difficult to find at first, and you'll be mistaken for walking past the small door in the building leading up to the Meat Market. Wandering around inside Jubilee Market Hall doesn't look like the place you'll find burgers being served among the little stalls of clothes and souvenirs. Looking upwards you see the red and black windows and you realise you're looking in the wrong place so try to find the staircase to head upstairs. 

Meat Market

At the top of the stairs your eyes are drawn everywhere at once thanks to all the brightly lit slogans and arrows overhead and the neon colours fridge magnets everywhere. It's a stark contrast to the market on the ground floor. The room is a long thin room with the kitchen down one side opposite the seating area. Walking along to the far end you find the ordering point with a menu to the right to look over. 

Quotes and Signs

All simple enough and due to being fairly hidden it's quiet inside so no waiting around. 

Meat Market Menu (Part 1)

Meat Market Menu (part 2)

The menu offers a varied selection of burgers, all of which are doubles, a couple of hot dogs to choose from and a choice of flavoured chicken wings and fries for sides. 
The colourful graffiti style cocktail menu on a chalkboard beneath and standard drinks menu to the side. 

Cocktail Menu

Drinks Menu

There's also a small note on the menu stating that all the burgers are cooked so slightly pink inside. The best way to cook them right?

Burger Cooking

Once you make your choice there's a bright red arrow above your head pointing to your order point. The server takes your name and gives you a plastic cup if you pay for a soft drink for you to use the self service drinks machine covered in bright fridge magnets. 

Drinks Machine

Find ourself a seat and wait for your name to be called out over the tannoy system letting you know that your food is ready to collect from the other end of the kitchen area. 

Order collected

My order was for the dead hippie burger having heard good things about the Meat Markets dead hippie sauce (their home made burger sauce). The Dead Hippie burger boasts 2 beef patties, cheese, minced onion onion, pickles, lettuce & dead hippie sauce.  

The wrapped burger stood tall against the side order of fries and unwrapping the burger revealed thick beef patties between a thick white bread bun. 

Dead Hippie Burger

Dead Hippie Burger

The beef patties inside are soft and juicy with good quality meat used to make the burgers. It's worth noting I didn't specify how I'd like my burger cooked so expected a pink centre to the middle of the beef. It was slightly pink, but only just. It was leaning more towards being a well done burger. The hippie sauce was a highlight of this burger. Most burger sauce tries to re-enact a popular high street burger sauce but the Meat Market just makes their own, and it tastes great. A peppery taste to it really goes well with the beef burgers. 

The cheese slices are melted to a thin liquid coating to the patties and the lettuce and pickles help reinforce the bottom of the bread bun as the sauce tries to make it fall apart.

Dead Hippie Burger

For a side I'd opted for cheese fries and was amazed at the size of the portion of fries. A foil case usually used for a greasy take away filled with fries which were barely viable under the heavy dosing of grilled cheese and sprinkling of onions. 

Cheese Fries

The fries were disappointing compared to the burger. There's just too much cheese on these and the fries are nothing more than cheap take-away style frozen fries. A real let down. Serving good burgers like this they should be backing them up with better sides.

Conclusion

The Meat Market is a trendy restaurant in a popular tourist and shopping area of London. It's a little hard to find but worth looking for if you're on the hunt for a decent burger to fuel your shopping spree. It's not too up market and offers great quality burgers at reasonable prices compared to others in the area. It doesn't seem like the sort of place aiming at business men in suits for customers, more towards a younger audience or people taking a break from shopping. The burgers are of a mountainous size with all being doubled for a similar price to a single burger in some of the near by burger restaurants. 

The process from entering to eating is simple enough and works well with everything clearly sign posted. 

The sides are the biggest let down for the Meat Market. It's a shame too, as their other food seems to be on the ball and destined to succeed even in this hidden location. 

@MEATmarketUK

Meat Rating: 6/10

Money for Meat: Paid in Full