Smoke and mirrors

Let’s play a game. Close your eyes. Clear your mind. And tell me what the first thing is that comes into your head when I say…fast car.

Ferrari? Lamborghini? No, wait, I’ve got it: Audi R8.

OK, another one. Ready?...fast animal.

Cheetah? Ostrich? Road Runner doesn’t count by the way.

OK, last one. One…two…fast food.

That’s easy: burger and chips.

Good. I’m glad we agree on something.

Of the above things, the word ‘fast’ relates to their speed of movement. Obviously a burger is the slightly odd one out being an inanimate object. ‘Fast’, one might assume, therefore relates to the speed at which it is cooked, or at which it is eaten.

On the subject of burgers, that most iconic and easily recognised of fast foods, I am fascinated by its sudden adoption into the ranks of the gourmand. I can’t quite imagine Cheesy Chips, or Doner Kebabs, or Hot Dogs ever making it into equally revered culinary grounds. Seemingly, by eating a burger in a restaurant specifically dedicated to burgers, and by choosing extras such as ‘home-made tomato coulis’, ‘oak-smoked Lancashire Bomber’ or ‘confit of onions’, the diner is eating something more…less…the diner is eating something ‘better’ than your bog-standard burger.

I suppose my problem is how people are actually fooled by the tarted up sides and extras, and the high-ceilinged, industrial-chic restaurants, packed full of media-lovies or City-boys, all tucking in, with irony, to their burger. They eat fast-food too you know. What fails to register amongst these lost souls is whether what they are eating is actually any ‘better’ than the burgers from the many burger vans across the stadiums in the country, or alongside the roads that weave in and out of our countryside.

The answer doesn’t have to be ‘yes’. Eating a burger that is equal to those sold by the burger van man in Twickenham Rugby Stadium doesn’t make it less enjoyable. What does make it less enjoyable is either if you are paying through the nose for a supposedly ‘gourmet’ burger, or if you are surrounded by people braying about how marvellous and delicious the burger is, or, worse still, both. And it was precisely that kind of experience which confronted me on Saturday evening.

Bukowski Grill – a charcoal-grill “joint” that started life in the hyper-cool, “retail revolution”, Boxpark, a pop-up mall in Shoreditch. Bukowski promises to serve up classic style burgers, pulled-pork sandwiches and quality beers and ales. Prices are low, the menu short. I like short menus. It gives one hope that the kitchen will be able to devote maximum attention to the few dishes available.

At Brixton’s Bukowski, on Saturday night, however, such a hope was quashed.

I won’t deny that I was already feeling somewhat cynical about eating at this new and supposedly fantastic burger “joint” – it was the endless hype and babble amongst the young and trendy, more interested in their buttoned-to-the-top checked shirts, slicked hair-styles and matt-red lipstick than what is on the plate, that had me raising The Eyebrow. But, The Boy was keen for meat (are you spotting a pattern here?), and keen to sample what his friends had promised was a bloody good burger, and I had The Friend who was also keen to try it. Never one to kick over sand-castles, we went in.

It can’t really ever bode well if you walk into a restaurant and smell burnt toast. No, before you ask, it wasn’t charcoal. I’ve worked in a kitchen, I’ve been to a BBQ  – I know what charcoal smells like. And I think every ex-student will know what burnt toast smells like. It is something as indelibly engrained in our sensory memory as newly cut grass, burger van onions or freshly baked bread. And that’s what smacked me in the face as we walked in.

The Eyebrow twitched.

The menu is, as I said before, short. Three beef burgers: one classic, one double with cheese and bacon, and a monthly special: currently with Argentinian sausage and chimichurri. One chicken burger. One vegetarian burger. Unsurprisingly tarty extras and no ‘ordinary’ mustard despite the kitchen making horseradish mustard. The Eyebrow twitched again.

Burger alternatives are pulled pork, a steak sandwich, beef ribs, and pork ribs.

The sides: tobacco onions (was that the burnt smell?); crayfish and prawn popcorn (sorry, are we in K.F.C?); and fried chicken livers (the obvious side for a dish already heavily saturated with animal fat). I saw the onions. In appearance they are true to the name – it looked like the contents of Fag-Ash Lil’s ash-tray after a night on the sofa watching the Eastenders omni-bus, the grey-brown cinders like decaying lung cells. Any takers?

I opted to keep it simple and try their classic burger, rare, no mayo, with red onion chutney and gherkins. So did The Friend, but medium, with Colston Bassett stilton and gherkins. The Boy went for the pulled pork bun. One small portion of chips. Two frozen margaritas and one Skrimshander.

After forty minutes, and every other table (around 15 in the unit), including those that arrived after us, having been served, our burgers arrived. And, sadly not to my surprise, my burger was well-done. Not even medium. It was well and truly cooked. As was my patience with fashionable, of-the-moment “joints”. The Friend’s burger was, yes, you guessed it: rare, or not quite medium. The Boy’s pulled pork sandwich looked like something I shall not describe in polite company.

The Friend and The Boy looked at me knowing exactly what was raging through my mind, and cowering lest I start to rant, but I said nothing and began to eat. And so our evening continued, me trying ardently to not allow this irritatingly average burger sour the atmosphere. Perhaps it is that I am unused to eating medium or well-done meat, but to me the burger was grizzly and bland. The red onion chutney was so heavily applied that it rivalled the size of the patty. There was a flaccid lettuce leaf and a thin slice of wet, pale and apologetic tomato.

There were two vaguely enjoyable parts to the meal: the gherkins, firm, and mildly vinegary with that traditional sweet twinge; and the margarita, so sour that The Friend almost couldn’t drink it. Thanks to my bi-daily lemon and hot water, my obsession with Campari, and love of all things bitter, I slurped away, with each slurp, slurping down my rising irritation.

And there we have it. A burger at Bukowski. Uninspiring, incorrectly cooked and irritatingly believed to be good.

I can’t help but notice that at Honest Burgers, previously the sole, or at least most popular, burger purveyor in Brixton Market, there was no sign of the queue that normally queued every day at any time, drooling for their patties. Such is the fickle nature of diners nowadays, more easily romanced by the new than the truly good. Give them reclaimed steel beams, unplastered walls and exposed brick work, perhaps some tobacco-heavy smoke, and you have yourself the hottest new “joint” in town. As for what to serve, don’t worry about that too much. Smoke you have, mirrors you can hang, and the diners they will rave.