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Sod Burger King's failed attempt to collaborate with McDonalds on a 'McWhopper'. Screw the fact that they've fixed up an alternative version with some other fast food outlets instead. Because it's all happening in the States, meaning that us Londoners aren't going to get a sniff of its flame-grilled goodness. Fortunately, though, a bunch of collaboration-loving London burger geniuses appear to have been inspired by the idea. So over the coming weeks, prepare yourself for the city's finest burger creators teaming up with eateries to create three awesome, patty-based hybrids. Or, as we like to call them: Frankenburgers. Here they are.
The World Peace Double Bacon Cheeseburger
This double pattied behemoth is so inspired by Burger King's International Peace Day Burger that it almost has exactly the same name. But it has something that the US version doesn't have: two of London's most badass burger geniuses behind it. Essentially the London burger equivalent of Power Rangers' Megazord, the lower fifty percent comes from one of the winners of our top five street food stalls in London, Bleecker St, while the lower half comes from awesome Old Queen's Head residents Lucky Chip. 'What we've done is take the bottom half of our bacon cheeseburger and remove the top', explains Bleecker St's Liam O'Keefe. 'Then Lucky Chip have taken the top half of their bacon cheeseburger and removed the bottom. Then we've put them together.' Think two kinds of bacon (back and streaky), two different kinds of saucing (one special blend, one straight-up squirts of ketchup, mayo and mustard) and two different kinds of bun. But one kind of flavour: amazing.
The World Peace Burger is available from The Old Queen's Head from Wed Sep 30 for one week only.
The Barrafina Burger
The clue's in the name. Meatliquor have teamed up with the Michelin-starred chef of tapas joint Barrafina (recently named the UK's best restaurant at the National Restaurant Awards) to create this stunning two-patty culinary journey of a burger. As well as a standard Meatliquor beef patty, there's a deep-fried burger made from rice-flecked morcilla sausage, which is coated in panko breadcrumbs and then topped with a slice of nutty Catalonian Ermesenda cheese and coated in punchy, coriander-filled Mojo picon sauce. Basically, it's an oddyssey of complex, delicious flavours, but you probably only need to know one thing: deep. Fried. Burger. Oh, and they're also giving a pound from each burger sold to Action Against Hunger. Delicious and altruicious. Or altruistic – whatever.
The Barrafina Burger is available now until Dec 1 at Meatliquor's London, Brighton and Leeds branches, as well as Meatmission, for £10.50.
The Major Oak
The only one of the three to only consist of a single patty (boo!), this team-up between NYC burger chain Shake Shack and Nottingham's two-star Michelin restaurant Sat Bains is topped with creamy blue Beauvale cheese and all sorts of high-falutin' flavourings intended to conjure up the flavour of a Nottingham forest (huh?). There's a smoked mayo with 'a hint of charcoal from Sherwood Forest's red oaks', a 'forest-inspired' mushroom ketchup and 'a touch of pine from the needles of local coniferous trees'. To be honest, we can't quite get our heads around it, but given the Michelin-endorsed restaurant involved, we're assuming it's going to taste way less like licking a tree than it sounds.
The Major Oak is available for one day only (Friday October 9) from the Covent Garden branch of Shake Shack for £7.25. Only 500 burgers will be served.
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