I ordered my Soho Diner “single” burger with cheese, bacon and egg and asked that it be cooked medium rare. I’ve put “single” in quotes, as it is technically a double with twin patties.

One minute later the waitress returned. The chef had told her the patties were too thin to cook medium-rare and wanted to know if medium would be acceptable.

That’s odd, I thought. The Soho Diner is a new spinoff of Electric Diner in Notting Hill, which managed to cook the same patties to a medium-rare of ravishing deep-pinkness. You might even call it rare. Here, have a look:

I nevertheless acquiesced. It is difficult to hit the red-to-pink colour spectrum just right with thin patties and I thought medium would be OK. Here, have a look:

I liked the burger. The tender, ultra-thick-cut maple bacon just as great as it was at Electric. The egg yolk was as you want it: Every which way AND loose. But the difference of 5-to-10 degrees in cooking temperature meant the patty crevices were not oozing red globules of fatty juice, as they were at Electric.

The chef had cooked the patties pretty much as he said he would and so there was no cause for complaint. But a Soho Diner burger cooked at or north of medium is not, like an Electric med-rare, one of the  top 10 burgers in London. No, not even if you’re looking at it with rose-coloured glasses.

Soho Diner, 19-21 Old Compton Street, London W1D 5JJ – 020 7734 5656