In October 2012 German chef Oliver Trific travelled from his Hamburg house to a London public house to rewrite the origins of the round mound of renown. For one BurgerMonday night only the chef/proprietor of the Restaurant Trific imagined what a hamburger (little h) would be like today had it been invented in Germany and not the USA by a Hamburger (big H).

The Hamburg Hamburger unveiled at The Draft House proved to be much more than an exercise in culinary wordplay. For inspiration Trific looked to labskaus, a famous stew that is Hamburg’s version of corned beef hash. Liverpudlians know it as lobscouse or just scouse and attach their accent and identity to it.

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Deconstructing the labskaus, Trific replaced the mashed potato with fries; the sautéed shallots, with a smoky shallot mayonnaise; and the corned beef, with a Hamburg steak – the classic chopped- (minced-) beef steak introduced to Americans by German migrants. He redeployed traditional labskaus garnishes – beetroot, pickles, pickled herring, fried egg – as toppings, both actual and hopeful: To make the pickled herring more palatable to Londoners Trific prepared it as a salsa and served it on the side in small glass bowls.

The herring has many adoring predators, from sharks, tuna, whales and dolphins at sea to Germans, Scandinavians, Dutch, Poles and Jews of Eastern-European ancestry on land. The British, they smell herring from one direction and they run in the other. With pickles, a quail egg and that dreamy smoked shallot mayo already on the Hamburg Hamburger few amongst BurgerMonday’s British majority  saw any need to traffic in Trific’s herring salsa. I insisted they had to try it, arguing that umami-rich fish sauces for steaks and, yes, burgers were very of the moment. If anchovies were good for classic British condiments like Worcestershire sauce and Gentleman’s Relish, I pleaded, why not a pickled herring salsa?

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.