This is good fancy barbecue.
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beef
These are some of the best sandwiches in London. No bullshit.
It’s one of the most consistently tasty, lovingly-prepared ten pound plates of food you can buy in central London
From the outside, Dukes Brew and Que wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Jeeves & Wooster, squeezed between a building wrapped in scaffolding and a council estate in Hackney-but-still-the-rough-bit Haggerston.
The ‘best in the world’ lists it features on are definitely deserved.
Rob
Oh my giddy aunt, where to start with this one.
Trust the entrepreneurs of Shoreditch to create a pop-up mall from things:
a) Michael Bay blows up in an average action sequence.
b) The unscrupulous use to move illegal immigrants about.
Shipping container locale aside, the feel of Bukowski Grill is weird: it’s got hints of a classic muted diner (the low hanging lamps, the Americana-heavy musak), but oddly crossed with a rustic feel. It was as if someone had bunged a short order cafe in the middle of the woods. Of Shoreditch.
Anyway.
Now, regular readers will know our opinions on the Open versus Closed bun issue. Well, when the cheeseburger arrived, we were confronted with a burger prep paradox: it was a closed bun. BUT, the pickles were on side AND there were no condiments inside. Completely unsauced.
As for the burger itself, the meat was pretty good, interestingly seasoned with what we though was a hint of porkiness. Bun was crunchy, and perhaps over toasted. The double gloucester cheddar was far too overbearing in the burger and overpowers the subtle flavour of the burger entirely. All condiments are hand made, and the mayo has a nice garlicky finish to it, but the only mustard on the premises they had was a pungent Dijon-esque horseradish variety. Odd choice for a burger joint that doesn’t serve roast beef.
Also slightly unsettling are the strange deli nuisances about the place: they offer a foccacia burger bun, which they’ll probably find doesn’t get ordered much at all. At least we hope not.
As for the other burger we ordered. Oh dear.
This motherfucker (legitimate swears, it’s called the Mother F) cut in half looked like a prop limb from a Saw movie.
We like our burgers rare to medium but one of these patties was raw to the point that it was still cold in the middle. You could see the fat. Despite some reservations, we persevered, under the impression that this was how was supposed to be. We stopped when nearing the middle. It was cold.
Now, disclaimer time, it was only their second day of opening. BUT, it was hardly super busy and they weren’t rushed off their feet (we were there around 3pm). The sous chef was eager to replace the burger for us, but due to time constraints, we had to leg it. So they were very kind in taking 50% off the already discounted bill (20% off for an introductory period). The service was great. The chips were nice.
Simon
What more to say.
Well, the boxes in the BOXPARK itself are adorable. Super cute.
As for the Bukowski Grill itself, the key point Rob hasn’t touched on, and one that is not apparent until you get into the place itself, is that this is a Spanish Burger Joint.
I have had one memorable Spanish burger, and that was at a branch of Ferran Adrià’s maladroitly named Fast Good in Madrid.
Once you embrace the Iberian heritage, a lot of the operational choices seem to make some kind of sense. At least a little bit.
The tomato on the burger is dehydrated (oven dried they call it). The brioche bun (I also balked at the focaccia option) is perfectly fine, but arrives completely unsauced. The mayo is an a squeezy bottle. The homemade ketchup is in a Heinz bottle. The aforementioned mustard is completely unsuitable and in a jar. There was also some chutney or something, for no discernible reason.
Now, the cheeseburger itself was perfectly satisfactory. Relatively unfussy. A solid C+. The beef is cooked in a baby Josper grill. An adorable thing itself, but not particularly well suited to cooking a burger. You get better results from a flat-top, and considering they’re not serving steaks, this seems like an expensive and unsuitable arrangement. It also means the cheese can’t be cloched. Combine that with a dense, heavy cheddar and a burger already lacking in wetness, it doesn’t come together well.
I won’t labour further on the poisonously undercooked Mother F. They were apologetic enough at the time and I’m sure they’ll sort their Josper timings out.
What with burger competition increasing week to week in London, I don’t think we’ll be back.
Afterword
Charles Bukowski is one of my favourite authors, and as a result I was hoping that the style and ethos of his work would be reflected in this place. Apart from the old school typewriter font menus (Bukowski fact - he used knackered portable Underwood typewriters in his early correspondence and writing), it isn’t. At all. Sad times.
- Rob.
“I guess I expected more from something with ‘Kobe’ in the title…”
Sadly, the story of where I had to go to find this truck is *far* more interesting than the food that came from it: I found myself on USC’s Fraternity Row during some mental party night. Not only did I feel like a weird, peckish paedophile - trying not to look at any of the scantily clad sorority girls walking from frat house to frat house. But simultaneously, I felt like I was in some irreverent college film, so familiar did the surroundings feel to my moviephile self. Odd.
The beef sliders were distinctly unimpressive.
Uncondimented.
After adding some ketchup to them they tasted almost identical to McDonald’s cheeseburgers, just with slightly better meat - not necessarily a bad thing, I like the way they taste, but I guess I expected more from something with ‘Kobe’ in the title.
The pork sliders looked great, but the pork was really dry, with no BBQ sauce to accompany it. The slaw, whilst a colourful spectacle, tasted like crunchy-but-watery mayo and failed to moisten the pork.
In their defence, I did catch the place just as it was about to close, so maybe I didn’t get the freshest peak-time fare, but it turned me off going back there, and left me thinking that a good slider is always hard to find, even in the States.
- Rob.
What makes it sting less is how good the experience is…
I stumbled into the Mayfair Goodman with the good lady completely by accident a few months ago. We had in fact been making our way across the West End to Byron, to try out the celebrated nuclear cheese version of their burgers, as requested by me and dozens of others.
Goodman was just right there. And had burgers. And we’d just purchased an enormous skillet from John Lewis and I was trying to not kneecap passing tourists with it.
It was a welcome, tobacco-coloured stop, where we had a very serviceable burger (not as drippy as I’d been led to believe) and a really quite jaw dropping beef carpaccio.
Fast forward to August and the new cunningly-placed Bank branch is running a three day soft launch. It’s an address that will ensure generations of long boozy banker lunches and the wine list has been knowingly selected to match the expenses drubbing it will no doubt be fuelling. It was a simple visit, especially when we had to pass on the full steak experience previously.
I’m a huge fan of the upmarket steakhouse. It’s an American export that is wholly welcome in London, where our steak has been bland and tasteless for too long. And it really helps showcase some of the stunning meat available in the capital. Hawksmoor’s Ginger Pig partnership springs to mind. We’re in a new era of local rock star butchery, and this new breed of steakhouse is the venue.
The key elements that make Goodman really good fun are all in the detail. The servers wear chef’s whites. It gives the unconscious illusion that they might be the one actually grilling the cut you choose from the selection tray. The tray itself is a masterstroke. I don’t think I’d ever order fillet steak normally, but the fact we could see just how marbled the fillet actually was is a huge selling point. It also gives you a visual guide as to what you can expect. I still struggle to think of beef metrically.
Everything is branded. The entire room and everything in it has been given a great deal of thought. The knives. The tap water bottle. The plates. The waiting staff. It’s not subtle, but it’s pretty and it’s tasteful.
They don’t skimp on portions. Sure, you pay for it, but just the fact you can order a 900g USDA porterhouse is immensely satisfying. The meat is impeccably cooked, provided you give enough detail when ordering (medium rare, but the rarer side of medium, not blue please). It’s well seasoned. The bearnaise has enough bite to it and doesn’t congeal too quickly. The stilton sauce is a richly reduced gravy, a country mile away from the gelatinous cheese sauce you’d expect otherwise. It all goes together brilliantly.
The accompaniments are, like the meat, flawless. The truffle chips are crisp and fluffy, the mushrooms are doused in just enough garlic butter and the tomato salad actually has some really quality tomatoes in it. And a good tomato can be very hard to find.
The only thing to really bring up is money. I’ve had a fair few discussions with beef fans who declare, with good reason, that they could just as easily go to O’Shea’s or the Ginger Pig or Allen’s of Mayfair and buy their own T-bone, rib eye or Porterhouse, take it home and grill it there. It’s a very good point. Steak isn’t hard to cook properly.
Even with 50% off food it was still nudging £45 a head for a single course, some shared sides, a cocktail and a glass of Malbec (our desserts were comped due to a spot of inadvertent menu proof reading). It would have been £70 on a normal day. What makes it sting less is how good the experience is, but it’s priced for special occasion, and do you just want a steak when you’re paying that much money?
Therefore I think Goodman falls squarely into the ‘awesome if on somebody else’s expenses’ bracket. Or just keep going back for the burger. At £12 it’s the star buy.
Full set of photos available on flickr
Goodman - Bank Bookings via their website £70 for steak, some sides and just about enough booze
