The Young&Foodish year ended on a high note, with my signing on with Phaidon, the prestigious publisher of books by Massimo Bottura, Ferran Adrià and René Redzepi, to compile a guide to the world’s best pizzerias.

This happy development should not come as too much of surprise if you’ve been following my posts here or on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 2 of my top 5 posts of 2014 were about pizza. In the past year I posted 5 videos about Neapolitan pizza on my YouTube channel.

This preoccupation with pizza did not come at the expense of my burger obsession. Burgers, like pizza, claimed two slots among my top 5 posts of the year. Since early October I’ve working on a major Young&Foodish event for early 2015 that’s to be all about burgers – real burgers. The Real Burger Challenge launches in London on January 18th.

Best wishes to you for a Happy New Year and a deliciously foodish 2015.

Top Young&Foodish Posts of 2014

5. Why Pizza in Naples has to be Soft

Naples shared its love of pizza and dry pasta with the world many years ago but something got lost in translation. Rather than eat pasta al dente and pizza soft, in the Neapolitan way, foreigners learned to do the opposite.

Non-Italians at last discovered the pleasures of al dente pasta in the late 20th Century. But only recently have hardcore devotees in the pizza diaspora acquired a soft spot for pizza with a light, pliable crust.

In my video above the master pizzaiolo Enzo Coccia of Pizzaria La Notizia explains why Neapolitan pizza must be so soft and light.

READ MORE>>>

4. Meet the Burgers #LBBfinal

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3. Pizza Pilgrims Think out of Box & Into Pan

“I have something for you,” said Londoner James Elliot, one of the Pizza Pilgrims behind the pizza van and insanely popular pizzeria of that name. “I’d like to you take it home and test it.”

I assumed the white pizza box Elliot handed me contained a pizza, albeit a rather heavy one. But when I opened the lid I saw a chemistry set where the pizza ought to have been. Plastic containers containing various elements were slotted into the round openings in a square sheet of green cardboard.
I slid the box over to Elliot for an explanation of its contents. The printed text under the lid contained the step-by-step instructions (see their recipe) for the Pizza Pilgrims Neapolitan Frying Pan Pizza.

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2. My Salad Cream Days in the UK

Assimilating the young and foodish me into British life has proven more frustrating than expected. I assumed it would be easy for me to adapt to the London foodscape, given I was educated in New Yorkese, a language with vast similarities to English, and was already acquainted with orange marmalade.

Turns out there was more to mastering the British food curriculum than distinguishing crisps from chips, aubergines from eggplants, tomatoes from tomatoes. 10 years into my London education I discovered I hadn’t even heard of, much less tried, a beloved British condiment, Heinz Salad Cream.

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1. Bleecker Street Triumphs with Blood & Guts at London Burger Bash Final

photo by Ian Sargent

Zan Kaufman of Bleecker St Burger won the Final of the London Burger Bash on April 5th at Borough Market with a combination of blood and guts.

The blood refers not to the oozy redness of her aged beef patties, cooked south of medium rare, but to the dried blood in the Clonakilty beef black pudding she added to her #LBBfinal entry – the Bleecker Black.

The guts alludes not to any beef innards in that Irish black pudding, however essential they may be, but rather to the audacity of using an ingredient that could repulse a thick slice of the voting pool.

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For #LBBfinal updates and news about other young&foodish events like the Y&F Facebook page.
 

Judging six big-league burgers in a single go is no job to be taken lightly. The London Overground may stop at Kentish Town West station, directly over the railway arches of Camden Town Brewery, the competition venue, but it’s up to you to get your mind and body in the right place.

This video of the inaugural bash, held 29 October 2012, will hopefully motivate you for the upcoming one, @BurgerMonday #LondonBurgerBush 28-29 July. The competitors may not be the same this time as they were in October but the demands on you the voter will be just as great. Promise.

This, the third of four heats in the group stage of the championship, was won by Fred Smith of Fred’s. The second heat, in April, was won by Joe Grossmann of Patty & Bun. The winners of the four heats will compete in the finals, to be held in April 2014.

Go ahead, salivate, that’s the carnivore’s natural response to my list of the top 10 burgers in London.

The quality and variety of burgers in London is steadily improving, of that there can be little doubt. But getting them cooked as ordered remains a crapshoot.

Exhaustive as my investigation was, not just of the top 10 burgers in London but also of many that didn’t make the cut, I can’t predict the likelihood of your getting a burger cooked the way you want it. Most burger flippers have good days and off days. This ranking is based solely on my days, my first-hand experiences, my luck.

Since your personal burger priorities are not likely in the same order as mind it’s a shame you can’t click a relevance tab to arrange this list according to the factors which matter to you most: burger style (street, joint, pub, steak), patty (size, shape, density), meat (cut, fat content, grind),  assortment of toppings, cooking method, construction, consistency of preparation, inventiveness, price, value for money, level of obscene drippiness, etc.

Absent a re-sorting mechanism I’ve resorted to taking into account all these factors. But in the end I relied most on a single consideration: pleasure. My top 10 burgers in London are the ones I’d most want to eat.

The Top 10 Burgers in London

10. Goodman

Goodman, once home to London’s best steakhouse burger, is having texture woes. The quality of the beef is as high as ever but the patty’s surface isn’t as crusty or caramelised as it used to be and its coarse, crumbly chew has turned to mush. Seen from the outside the Goodman steakhouse burger remains a handsome handful: You will need to stretch the C-shaped brackets formed between thumbs and index fingers to make a go of it. £15 including chips.
Goodman Mayfair – 26 Maddox Street, W1S 1QH
Goodman City – 11 Old Jewry, EC2R 8DU
Goodman Canary Wharf – 3 South Quay, Discovery Dock East, E14 9RU 

9. Burger Bear 

Give me a jar of Burger Bear’s homemade bacon jam, a spoon and couple of beers and I could make an evening of it, so good is Tom Reaney’s signature burger condiment. But the street food warrior isn’t done there: He also likes to dress his burgers with the crispest streaky bacon in all of Londonium Burgerdom: The one-two bacon punch could lead some to overlook the patty. That would be a big mistake. Balls of coarse mince are crushed but not flattened on the flattop, leaving all the fatty juices in your burger, protected in its effective if homely white bun, until your first bite liberates them. Beefy red droplets quickly rain down onto your plate and, if you’re not careful, your shoes. You can identify the regulars on the queue by the stains on the toes of their trainers. £5-£10 not including chips. Burger Bear will be competing in the 4th and final round in the group stage of the BurgerMonday London Burger Bash.
Red Market, 1-3 Rivington St, EC2A 3DT

8. Lucky Chip

Is it finally time to draw a line in the salt? The hot-off-the-truck burgers from Lucky Chip get their Gareth Bale kick from the Murray Hill Australian sea salt encrusting its patties. As difficult as it is to put these fabulously middleweights down, figuratively and, yes, literally, the heavy-handed salting has gone over the top. There’s no disputing the appeal of the patties, with their desirably rough contours and fat-soaked crevices. When cooked right the buzz you get from the first bite is so great you can almost feel your ears ringing.  The smoked back bacon, however, can border on chewy, occasionally with tiny hard white bits, possibly cartilage. Lucky Chip is in residence at the Sebright Arms pub every night except Sunday.  On Saturdays you’ve find the guys parked at the original Netil Market location from 12:30pm to 9pm. £6.50-£16 not including fries.
Lucky Chip at Sebright Arms, 31-35 Coate Street, E2 9AG
Lucky Chip at Netil Market, 13-23 Westgate Street, London Fields, E8 3RL

7. Honest Burgers

In a makeshift burger luncheonette in Brixton Village Market built with hammer and nails Tom Barton and his able sidekicks stick to the fundamentals. They form 5 1/4 ounces (150 gr) of mince into marbled beef balls and flatten them with their hands (not spatula) on their flat-top griddle. Only then are the burgers seasoned with coarse salt. The crunch of the Honest, their best daily burger variety burger, comes from the level layers of sliced homemade gherkins and crisp streaky bacon; its tang, from griddle-steamed Cheddar; its sweetness, from red onion relish; its oven-browned polish, from a brushed white-flour bun; its juice, from marbled meat put through the most minimal of workouts. Burgers are not like boxers: If you want to develop a middleweight champion, as Honest has done, you mustn’t overwork ’em. £7.50-£9 including chips.
Honest Burgers Brixton – Unit 12, Brixton Village, SW9 8PR Honest Burgers Soho –  4A Meard Street – W1F 0EF Honest Burgers Camden, Unit 34A, 54-56 Camden Lock Pl, NW1 8AF

6. Bleecker St. Burger

If you’re a native New Yorker, as I am, the first thing you notice about this black burger van is that it’s named after a famous Greenwich Village street. The second thing you notice is that Zan Kaufman, the New Yorker-turner-Londoner taking orders, is wearing the hat of the despised Red Sox, a rival baseball team from Boston. In a flash you almost can hear the voice of Greenwich Village native Robert De Niro urging you to “walk away” from the Zan-with- a-van before it’s too late. But if you’re a bigger fan of burgers than baseball, as I am, you stay: Sometime sure smells really good and you gotta know what it is. The extraordinarily thing about the deceptively ordinary Bleecker burger is that it’s at once beefy, juicy, creamy, sweet and salty without feeling dirty. Rarely if ever will you find aged beef of this quality in a street burger. Plus it’s cooked, as promised, to medium rare – no easy task given the relative thinness of the patties. For that alone I tip my New York Mets baseball cap to Zan. £5.50 for a single; £7.90 for a double (not including fries). Bleecker’s double cheeseburger was voted top burger at round 3 of the London Burger Bash.
Go to Bleecker’s Facebook page to follow it’s schedule and whereabouts.

5. Hawksmoor

There are two pairs of hands you want to see around this big and deceptively powerful burger: yours or Hawksmoor‘s. Others have tried to duplicate the lush mince mix, which is said to include bone marrow and obscure cuts like beef shoulder clod, but these imposters have left me and their burgers crushed. Fat fills the grooves within the Hawksmoor burger as it cooks, basting its internal structure with deep, beefy flavours. The wet patty rests over an untidy raft of lettuce interruptus. Squeeze the burger too firmly or not firmly enough, I’m never sure which, and the patty will slide out from its housing, greasing your hands and breaching the bottom of the bun even before you’ve taken your first bite. But, oh my, what a first bite! Danger. Implosion. It’s all there, except, in recent instances, any significant char on the surface of a patty cooked to medium rare. Amongst four Hawksmoors, this ranking only apples to the Seven Dials location near Covent Garden, its burger HQ. £15 including chips.
Hawksmoor Seven Dials – 11 Langley Street, WC2H 9JG

4. Bar Boulud

Some vertical burgers are beefier but none is more stable than Boulud’s: Its hand-minced, hand-packed patty sits snugly beneath a thick layer of toppings inside the domed bun. It’s as if the bun’s bottom half had a contoured seat, like an Eames moulded side chair. Order one medium-rare and it comes to you with charred shell, pink interior, no grey fringes. The burger gives easily to the gentlest of finger squeezes, first lubricating itself and then your mouth with juices. The Frenchie, with melty Morbier, Dijon mustard and pork belly confit, is a splendid Gallic riff on a bacon cheeseburger. The Piggie transforms Bar Boulud into Bar Becue with its layers of red cabbage slaw, japapeno and pulled pork. But it’s the lavish BB that halts conversation: Something monumental happens when the succulent braised short ribs, foie gras, horseradish mayo, crisp fried shallots, red onion confiture, black onion seed brioche and patty are crushed between your teeth. £11.75-£20 not including frites.
66 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7LA

3. Patty & Bun

A burger bun is a handle protecting our hands from drippy greasy, cheese and condiments. Patty & Bun‘s Joe Grossmann did not get that memo. His burgers are not so much over-the-top as all over the place: Open the wrapper and you can’t tell where the orange cheesy stuff ends and the runny orange house sauce begins. Beneath the radioactive goo is an appealingly plump, deep-pink, hand-packed patty just shy of six ounces but not shy of fatty juices. It’s a genre bender, successfully combining classic elements of both joint burgers and steak burgers. Grossman has named burgers after Ari Gold and Smokey Robinson but for me a more voluminous luminary comes to mind, Oliver Hardy. “Well,” you’ll be telling Grossmann as you unwrap yet another Ari or Smokey and lick mayonnaise off your fingers, “here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into!”. Grossmann’s Piggy Smalls was voted best burger in round 2 of the London Burger Bash. £7.50-£8.50 not including chips.
54 James Street, W1U 1HE

2. Elliot’s Cafe

With beer-braised onions, aged Comté melted as if for a gratinée and bread overhead, Elliot’s burger is outfitted in the manner of French onion soup. The accoutrements enhance but do not smother each 160-gram mound of aged, coarsely minced beef shin and rib cap from Borough Market neighbour The Ginger Pig. British Ogleshield has been added to the Comté to give the cheese element more an edge. The plump patty is smartly shaped for height at the expense of diameter. Its shape and fit over a house-baked linseed brioche bun brushed on its cut sides with acidulated dill butter is in the Bar Boulud mould, whereas the meat’s beefy creaminess belongs to the Hawksmoor school. My only beef with the Elliot’s burger is that it’s only available at lunch. £12.50 including chips.
12 Stoney Street, SE1 9AD

1. Little Social

Cooked the old-fashioned, low-tech way in a sizzling cast-iron pan, the crusty burger patty at Little Social, Jason Atherton’s spinoff bistro, is good enough to plate with nothing to go with it other than knife and fork. Okay, if you wanted to throw in some of those golden fries they’d not go to waste. The New York-style chopped steak created by Canadian head chef Cary Docherty is a blend of aged Scottish chuck, flank, neck and clod coarsely minced in-house. The hand-formed patty is so close a match for the garnishes (mild Cheddar, smoked streaky bacon, caramelised onions) that cloak it and the gorgeous Boulangerie de Paris sesame seed brioche bun that houses it you’d think Docherty had employed a Savile Row tailor for the fitting. His classic burger, £15 including fries, can be customised with sautéed foie gras for an extra £10 but that luxurious accessory is unnecessary. Amongst the “est”-ending burger superlatives (biggest, baddest, dirtiest, etc.) there’s only one I’d apply to Docherty’s Little Social burger: best.
5 Pollen Street, W1S 1NE