When I heard the news that Danny Meyer’s restaurant chain was crossing the pond to the big smoke, the excitement trembled through me, probably more-so than when my Beyoncé tickets arrived in the post (and that was almost earth-shattering). And they were even kind enough to open the burger joint on my birthday, July 5th.
I am a massive fan of Meyer. His book Setting the Table is my bible, and his legacy of restaurants (Union Square Café, Eleven Madison Park to name a couple) has earned him numerous awards, including the NYU Lewis Rudin Award for Exemplary Service to New York City in 2011.
However, incomprehensibly, I have never even visited one of his restaurants, for no other reason than the air fare. So, my first Meyer experience needed to be profound. It needed to be insightful. It needed to live up to this other-worldly haven of smoke-y burgers and frozen custards I have created in my greedy, ravenous mind. So in order to have the best encounter possible, I waited a few days for the hype to die down a little, and chose a time in which I thought was ‘off-peak’ for fast-food junkies.
It’s 3pm. I’m struggling to see any empty tables. There’s a sea of plastic trays and mucky, ketchup rimmed mouths. I’m panicking. I haven’t even seen the entrance yet and I’m expecting the worst.
But, there’s a twist in the tale. My burger companion (Julia) and I walked straight in. I order our food. We’re given a buzzer and told to “take a seat; it’ll be ready in 5-10 minutes.” I’m slightly worried by how well this whole process is going. There’s more seating available, lots more. The buzzer vibrates the table, although this could have been misconceived as my jittery anticipation.
The food: I ordered the single SmokeShack Burger (a cheeseburger with British free range Wiltshire cure smoked bacon, chopped cherry pepper and SmokeShack sauce). Julia ordered the Shack-Cago Dog (an authentic German all-beef hot dog with Rick’s Picks Shack relish, onion, cucumber, pickle, tomato, sport pepper, celery salt and mustard). We shared a portion of crinkle cut fries and the Sticky Toffee concrete (vanilla custard with chocolate toffee, Paul A. Young chocolate chunks, salted caramel sauce and malt powder).
The drinks: I wanted to try the ShackMeister Ale but they sadly had run out. Instead, we opted for a couple of the Kernal table beers.
Now, I had already read a few reviews for Shake Shack London, some of which slammed it for being ‘just another half-hearted burger joint’, and people complained it was not worth the wait. But I am a strong believer in my own research, especially when it has subjects of a meaty variety involved.
I absolutely loved it. Each bite of my burger revealed a new flavour. The first bite involved me squealing about how good the burger was, despite actually not paying any attention to the taste, I was too excited. The second bite hit me with a smoke-y punch, and a tangy crunch from the cherry pepper. The bun was like a bready cushion, encasing the treasurable 100% Aberdeen Angus beef, grass fed on Scottish pastures (oh and boy does it show). Julia kindly let me try some of her hot dog, which was beautifully fresh for such a hot summer’s day. The crinkle cut fries (ribbed for your pleasure) were impeccably crisp on the outside, and smooth on the inside. Perfect. The concrete felt like a slightly more animated version of Ben& Jerry’s, which is not a bad thing in my books. However, obviously the quality of ingredients was vastly superior, in particular, the Paul A. Young (award winning English chocolatier) chocolate chunks.
If I haven’t given you enough reason to go and stuff your face, I’ll give you one more. They serve red velvet dog biscuits, with peanut butter sauce and vanilla custard for our four-legged friends, which actually sound rather divine. Woof woof.
As Mary Antoinette once famously said: “Let them eat burgers.”
