Almost Famous

Almost Famous is often regarded as the best burger restaurant in Manchester. Their success has been huge, expanding from a single small restaurant hidden away in Manchester's Northern Quarter to running 4 hugely successful restaurants throughout the North of England (2 in Manchester, 1 in Liverpool and their latest restaurant in Leeds). 
Their increasing success isn't down to expensive or extensive advertising either. They use social media to voice themselves online and apart from that, just let the food speak for itself. The food is obviously worth shouting about as word of mouth seems to be the main method of advertising for Almost Famous, and it's keeping their restaurants full! 

Their original Manchester Northern Quarter restaurant unfortunately suffered a kitchen fire (it has since reopened if you can find it) which lead them to opening up a restaurant in the ever popular Great Northern warehouse near Deansgate. This was their first restaurant I tried almost a year ago and since then they've been my go-to restaurant for burgers. 

Outside, again, there's hardly any advertising indicating what this restaurant is. The Almost Famous name isn't visible anywhere outside. Just a neon burger with wings hangs above the front door. 

Front Door

Around the rest of the glazed building there's labelling suggesting a burger restaurant serving magical meats, but with a lot of the windows frosted over you can't see much inside, but they do give a couple of clear spaces to peer through for "cheap thrills". 

Burgers Get You Ripped

Peer here for "cheap thrills"

Magical Unicorn Meat for sale

When you walk in the process can be a little confusing at first but there's usually a member of staff just inside the door asking how many you'd like to seat and giving you an estimated waiting time. It's always busy whatever time I've been, particularly in an evening, but today's visit for the memoirs was an early Sunday afternoon visit for a burger lunch and so it was fairly quiet and we were offered a table straight away. When it's busier, the staff take a mobile phone number from you so you can wander off or spend time in the bar and they text you when your table is available. It's a great system I always thought, seen as they don't take bookings for tables, and the wait never seems to take as long as they estimate. 

Inside the room is fairly darkly lit with graffiti style drawings on the walls around the place in a "Disney-on-acid" style, giving it a different look to other clean looking restaurants. At higher level there's rules similar to those of fight club, edited to refer more to Almost Famous, and polaroid snaps of beautiful people eating dirty food. 

Bar Area

Disney on Acid

Disney on Acid

1st Rule of Almost Famous Club....

"Ninth and final rule; If this is your first time at Almost Famous club, you have to eat bacon"

We took our seats though and had a look over the relatively small menu. The menu offers a selection of 8 burgers to choose from ranging from the traditional plain cheeseburger (The Famous Burger), to burgers containing outrageous ingredients such as baconaise (bacon mayonaise) or beef Monster Munch crisps. Every now and again they bring up a special burger on the menu to order. 

Menu

For those who prefer their chicken or pork to their beef, there's an Awesome Frickin' Chicken burger or pulled pork roll to choose from. Or there's chicken wings available in each of Almost Famous' signature sauces (Redneck - BBQ, Suicide - hot sauce, or their Pho-King Amazing - Peking sauce).

The fries are a separate order and from the menu it's obvious they aren't your normal fries, with mixes of regular fries and sweet potato topped with bacon bits and baconaise, or waffle fries topped with pulled pork and BBQ sauce (Redneck sauce). 

Option of Fries

The ordering process isn't too obvious but is written on the side of the menu. You order at the bar when you're ready and food will be brought to your table. If you want cutlery, extra sauce or kitchen roll (which you'll probably need to clean your fingers) you have to go pick them up yourself from one of the little tables dotted around filled with these. 

My better half opted for the newest burger on their menu, the John Bender burger (£10). This includes a double cheeseburger, spiced sausage patty, crispy smoked bacon, JD waffle fries, a poached egg, baconaise and chipotle ketchup. For the side she opted for a portion of "Pig and Waffle" fries which are waffle fries topped with pulled pork, Redneck BBQ sauce, blue cheese sauce, chopped chillis and onions. 

John Bender (£10)

The meat in all the burgers is great quality ground steak. The cheap cheese slices on this burger are a bit disappointing but the flavour of them combines to create the taste sensation of this burger. The thick bacon rashers and the crispy waffle fries are soothed down by the perfectly cooked runny-yolk poached egg on top. The egg really makes this burger smooth to eat.   

Pig & Waffle Fries

The pig and waffle fries are cooked and seasoned to perfection. They're then topped with wonderfully moist pulled pork which is packed with flavor and doused with blue cheese sauce and Almost Famous' own Redneck sauce. The sauce has a slight tinge of spice to it but the real kick comes from the thick chopped chilli and onions (although this isn't overpoweringly hot, just enough to tingle the tongue). Overall the fries are fantastic, although one portion could easily be shared. 


For my order I thought I'd try the special for a change, which was shown on a separate little menu. Entitled "The Famous Breakfast Club" (£10) it was constructed from; a double cheeseburger with pepper jack cheese, slow cooked bourbon brined pulled pork, honey beerios (Cheerios in beer), Bacon Rain (bacon pieces), chipotle ketchup and hollandaise mustard mayonnaise. For my side of fries I opted for my favorite "Bacon Bacon" fries (£4) which are a mix of seasoned regular and sweet potato fries topped with bacon rain (bacon pieces) and baconaise (Bacon mayonnaise). 

The Famous Breakfast Club

This was the first time I'd experienced this burger and to be honest I'm not the biggest fan of Cheerios cereal but I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I did! The beer doused cheerios were sweet and delicious. The pulled pork, like the pork on the pig and waffle fries was juicy, moist and delicious, then the Redneck BBQ sauce adds even more BBQ flavor. 

The cheese on this burger was much more delicious than American type slices on the John Bender. Instead the pepper jack cheese was melted to a soft lava texture that softened the delicious thick meat patties. 

The patties are cooked to perfection. Just slightly pink, and made of top quality minced steak. The fresh brioche buns are soft and fluffy but they almost go unnoticed with all the flavor between the bun.  

The Famous Breakfast Club

The bacon bacon fries are my personal favourite. There's nothing too fancy about them, simple seasoned fries with just the right mix of regular fries and sweet potato fries, which are then topped with delicious baconaise and crunchy bacon rain (bacon pieces). It's common to find little bacon pieces like this are overcooked and burnt in other restaurants, but they're done to perfection in Almost Famous. 

Bacon Bacon fries

If ever taking anyone to Almost Famous I try steer them away from the plain fries, and encourage them to try bacon bacon or some other fries as they're almost as good as the burgers themselves. 

It should be a crime to settle for the plain burgers and fries at Almost Famous as their inventions need to be experienced by all. 

Conclusion

Almost Famous isn't your typical restaurant. I say that with two meanings. Firstly the burgers and food is like nothing anywhere else. The creations they come up with and flavors they put between bread and atop beef patties sometimes don't sound that inviting, but trust in their inventions and you will never be left disappointed. 

The second difference is that you don't get the service like a traditional restaurant. You order for yourself at the bar, you collect your own cutlery, napkins and sauces. The only service is that they bring your food to your table and they clean up after you. This is the common complaint I've read elsewhere, this and the staff attitude. I've always found the staff to be very helpful and friendly but found the bar staff a bit short with me on this particular visit. The waiter who brought our food over was very helpful though and made up for his colleagues service. And if you're willing to overlook the lack of traditional service the food will more than make up for it. 

You can't book a table, although this is becoming common in city centre restaurants, but it means there can often be a wait, especially during peak times, but it's worth waiting for. The text alert system they run during busy times works very well and allows you to reply and cancel your table should you change your mind while you're waiting.   

The burgers are the most flavorful, amazing creations put between bread (that I've found to date). It's easy to see why the word is being spread without any advertising. The beef patties are always cooked to the same slightly pink perfection, and always top quality meat. The burgers are topped with ingredients never considered by other places and it works very well. 

The sides are a similar mouth tingling sensation topped with more ingenious topping ideas which work wonders to satisfy the hunger pangs. 

Almost Famous own sauces all have a unique flavor which should be sampled while you're there. The hot sauce is just hot enough without being ridiculous, the BBQ sauce is smokey and thick sticky delight, and the Pho-king sauce is sweet sauce with a chilli kick to it. 

If you're in need of something to wash all this gluttony down with then their cocktail menu isn't to be skipped either. This, like their food, includes similar ingenious inventions (for example, an Old Fashioned topped with toffee popcorn?). I didn't have any on this particular visit, but will hopefully review these next time I visit (which I doubt will be much of a wait). 

Meat Rating: 10/10

Money for Meat: Paid in Full

Honest Burger

The final stop on my London trip in the search for some of Londons best burgers lead me to Honest Burger. 

http://www.honestburgers.co.uk/

Honest Burgers have become famous in London for their success, coming from a small marquee to a chain of restaurants throughout London. They started out sourcing fresh meat down from a farm in Yorkshire and turning that into fresh meat patties to serve with simple rosemary seasoned fries they began to expand. They now have a total of 7 restaurants at the time of writing this memoir, all across London (Brixton - their original restaurant, Soho, Camden, Portobello, Kings Cross, Oxford Circus and Tooting). With this much success and growth the meat memoirs had to see if these burgers were some of the best in London. 

Having to catch a train from Kings Cross the Kings Cross restaurant was my choice for a lunch time burger. 

Arriving early lunch time I wasn't sure if there'd be a long wait or not but the restaurant was surprisingly quiet. 

The staff behind the bar quickly welcomed me and ushered me to a rustic timber table. The whole room is dry rustic timber with a white tile bar. There's an open kitchen and additional seating in the basement too but the ground floor is light and spacious with great views for people watchers thanks to the large windows around the restaurant. 

Interior

Light Rustic Interior

The staff didn't seem to give me much time to look over the menu before asking if I was ready to order. When I asked for a few more minutes. I was given no more than that before I was asked again. Feeling rushed I quickly made my choice from the flow chart style menu. 

The flow chart look of the menu is very simple to use. Chicken titles linked to the chicken dishes. The majority are beef dishes but there's a vegetarian title linking the dishes for vegetarians. 

Menu

Unlike every other burger restaurant sampled this weekend, and most others these days, honest burgers are served with salted rosemary fries rather than you having to buy fries as an additional side dish. 

They have a small selection of additional side dishes including coleslaw, chicken wings, onion rings and additional sauces to choose from. 

The menu reads as their name suggests. Honest. Simple. Burgers. With just 5 beef burgers to choose from I opted for the Tribute burger (£10.00). 

Beef patty, bacon, American cheese, burger sauce, French's mustard, pickles, onions, and lettuce. Sounded like a classic combination to me. 

The bottom of the menu notes that all burgers are cooked medium / pink unless other wise requested. When ordering the waitress made sure I was happy with this, which I confirmed I was after all the other "pink" burgers I'd eaten so far this weekend had been to my liking I thought these would be similar if not the same. 

To compliment the burger I ordered a side of onion rings too having not had any all weekend. 

The burger arrived after what didn't feel like very long but I was engaged in conversation passing the time. 

On a large enamel plate came a generous portion of fries along side a thick beef burger inside a perfectly round, perfectly golden bread bun. The size of the beef patty hid the salad and other toppings on this burger, with just an edge of onion and a dribble of mustard visible. 

Tribute Burger (£10.00) with Rosemary & Salt Fries

Take the top off the burger to reveal 2 slices of very thick bacon! It's great to see proper bacon on a burger and not that microwaved paper thin stuff. With American cheese stated on the menu it was never going to be much more than a cheese slice and that's what you get. 

Topless

The beef patty looked juicier than any of the weekend yet, and biting into it revealed why. 

Having been asked if I'd be happy with my burger cooked pink in the middle I expected a little pink colour to the middle, but this burger I'd describe as blue in the middle. It was bordering on barely warm in the centre. The beef was great quality, the patty almost falling apart like mince still. These were possibly the thickest patties sampled in London. So no complaints there. But the meat in the middle, although tasty, just shouldn't be that pink in a burger in my opinion, I'd have felt a little more comfortable had it been cooked more. 

Pink? More like Blue Centre

The side of skin-on fries were fried to a great crisp and seasoned well, not that the Rosemary seasoning was very obvious. They were well salted though.

The second side of onion rings were 5 large rings of onion in a crispy loose batter that easily fell away from the onion rings. They tasted good but were nothing outstanding. 

Optional Onion Rings (£3.00)

Conclusion

Honest burgers are obviously having a great success throughout London with their simple menu of classic burger flavour combinations. 

The staff in this restaurant seemed rather keen to take my order, and although it's a simple menu, when trying to take in the surroundings etc. I needed a little longer to browse the menu and decide. I couldn't understand their hurried attitude when the restaurant seemed so quiet. 

Honest Burgers use simple ingredients that are obviously fresh and well made. Their beef patties are some of the thickest available in London that I found, and I've never seen such a perfectly rounded and golden brown bread brioche bun. 

They've concentrated on perfecting the ingredients and combining this with simple sides it's working. I imagine it won't be long before they've expanded beyond the capital city into other areas of the UK. If they do, I only hope they don't loose their original intentions along the way. 

May be it was just this particular serving, or this particular restaurant, but to me a burger needs to be cooked more than this. Yes it tastes great. but there are reasons a burger needs to reach a certain temperature in the centre, and I couldn't be sure this burger had reached that temperature. I still ate it and to no ill effects, I just imagine that based on other restaurants idea of a "pink" burger, people won't be expecting something quite this pink. I'd also worry how long before one bad batch of meat gets through. I suppose if they source their meat from a particular farm and that farm can keep up with demands then hopefully the quality is controlled right up to mincing and patty making. 

It wouldn't put me off Honest Burger by a long shot though. Next time I'm in London I'll visit Honest Burger again and would hope to see them expand out of London. Next time I visit though I'll be sure to ask for the burger more towards well done, as may be my preference just didn't stretch to this extent of "pink". 

@honestburgers

Meat Rating: 6/10

Money for Meat: Paid in Full