When it comes to making a good burger, these places are smashing it.
Literally, in some cases – it feels like a new smashed burger joint (with accompanying perma-queue) is opening in the capital every week. But beyond the flash-in-the-pan hype eats, London’s also home to a bounty of burger restaurants quietly turning out some grade-A stacks.
If you’re set on chowing, sliding, scooping, shovelling, and pushing the metropole’s best down your meat pipes, sit back, don’t eat for a week, and let us reveal the finest burgers in London:
Manna Burgers, Arcade Food Hall | Battersea & Bloomsbury
As the critically acclaimed team behind restaurants like (Michelin-starred) Gymkhana and (also Michelin-starred) Trishna, JKS were only ever going to bring the best traders into their high-end food halls. So it should come as no surprise that patty-slingers Manna serve up some of London’s best burgers.
Set up by Bake Street co-owner Feroz Gajia, Manna’s signature is the overhanging smash burger, with blackened char on the outside hiding a rich, beefy centre, all folded into a cloud-like bun. And that’s not to mention the chicken burgers – the Nashville Hot comes with hot & tangy cayenne butter, while another chicken burger literally drips with hot honey.
When you’re done burgering, the Nashville Hot Tenders and waffle fries await…
Details: 103-105 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1DB | Battersea Power Station, Circus Rd West, SW11 8DD | Find out more
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no drama | Acton
Quality burgers. Banging sides. Excellent music. Why complicate things? no drama is everything you could want in your local indie burger joint. They source their meat from the best in the biz, HG Walters; their buns are made with sweet, fluffy brioche; and the combos are unreal – choose between sausage patty with smokey bacon and a smashed hash brown; the scrambled egg with aged cheddar and green salsa; the garlic & thyme mushrooms with hot sauce and diner cheese… it’s a trip. Come on a weekend to get the loaded fries, too.
Details: 199 Old Oak Road, London, W3 7HH | Open Wed-Sun, no bookings
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Black Bear Burger | Brixton, Exmouth Market, Shoreditch, Canary Wharf, Victoria
Other than constructing a wonderfully alliterative and meaty brand name, Black Bear Burger also provides some of the best burgers in town. They all come sandwiched between a delicious sesame bun – not too thick, so you’re not just filling up on bread. The “Black Bear” features dry-aged, grass-fed beef, onion jam, garlic mayo, dripping cheese and smokey bacon. Other options include the “Brisket Burger”, or the “Miso Bacon Burger”. And you’ll even get a little complimentary soft scoop with your bill.
Details: See locations & book here
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Blacklock | Soho, Shoreditch, City, Covent Garden, Canary Wharf
While it takes a feat of superhuman restraint to go to Blacklock and not order the all-in platter of every kind of chop in the house… you’ll be justly rewarded if you go for the burger. Blacklock uses premium grass-fed meat from farmer Phillip Warren in Cornwall, here served up as two thin patties for maximum tasty surface area, and sandwiches it all between a sesame bun. Extras include oozing cheddar cheese, gherkins, and a wild spicy sauce. Swallow this delicious secret and proceed to de-classify the information.
Details: See locations & book here
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Mondo Sando | Camberwell
It’s no surprise that Jack McCrae’s cult sarnie joint is also pumping out some of the best burgers in London. After all, a burger is a sandwich subset, duh. The star of Mondo Sando’s burger output is the “Burguez Merger” with a grilled lamb & beef merguez patty. The North African spice combined with the burger’s cheesy, juiciness is evidence of a genius sandwich-smith at work.
Details: Grove House Tavern, 26 Camberwell Grove, London SE5 8RE | Book here
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Whole Beast | Peckham
Whole Beast is a live-fire-cooking concept intertwined with nose-to-tail dining started by Sam and Alicja Bryant, the founders of Coal Rooms in Peckham. The husband-and-wife duo have been grilling their way around London’s pop-up scene for a few years now, and they’re currently storing the coals at The Montpelier in Peckham. That’s where you can currently get their signature aged cheeseburger, whose flavour is multiplied to its highest degree through flame, smoke, embers, dry-aged beef, American cheese and soft potato buns.
Details: The Montpelier, 43 Choumert Rd, London SE15 4AR | Book here
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Patty & Bun | Battersea, Canary Wharf, Hackney, London Bridge, Bond St, Oxford Circus, Liverpool Street
Patty & Bun, aka, The Nominal Deconstructionists, use a mad-scientist secret patty recipe that centres around 35-day aged rib eye Aberdeen Angus beef. The result is, simply, delicious. And yet, each month they release an equally insane, equally meticulously considered special burger that is always worth checking out. But that’s not all. They do classic chicken burgers, breakfast burgers, and even their dessert, a malt ice cream sandwich, has been burgerised. Put bluntly, Joe Grossman and his team, bloody love burgers.
Details: See locations & book here
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Burger & Beyond | Soho, Shoreditch, Borough
Burger & Beyond have been officially named as Seven Travel’s third best burger in EUROPE. Such heady heights have been reached by dry-aging their grass-fed Swaledale beef for between 28-45 days in fridges walled with salt. This creates a burger that is… beyond good. The “Bougie Burger” comes with 2.0 steak sauce, “marrownaise” and beef fat onion. The truffle tots are a must, too.
Details: View locations & book here
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The Plimsoll | Finsbury Park
Legendary burger “The Dexter” started life at the Compton Arms. It received some of the greatest critical acclaim ever lavished on the humble burger. Since then, the same chefs, Ed McIlroy and Jamie Allan, went on to take over The Plimsoll: a traditional boozer with mismatched crockery, small tables and pub stools, where they serve delicious grub. “The Dexter” burger thrives because of its simplicity: patty, gherkins, cheese, burger sauce, and onions in a brioche bun. That is all.
Details: 52 St. Thomas’s Road, London N4 2QW | Book here
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Hawksmoor | Bank, Borough, Covent Garden, Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Spitalfields, Canary Wharf
What happens when the refined approach of one of the best steak restaurants in London is funnelled into the construction of a burger? Well… the result is exactly as you’d expect: incredible.
Elevating their craft is the grass-fed British-native longhorn beef patty infused with bone marrow, plus the use of fine British Ogleshield cheese. For an extended burger range, pull up a stool at their floating bar The Lowback, where a scampi po-boy and a sincere Big Mac tribute are both available. Burgers have never felt so aristocratic.
Details: See locations & book here
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Lagom | Hackney
Elliot Cunningham’s Scandi-inflected BBQ outfit Lagom gets its title from a Swedish concept meaning ‘not too much, just exactly the right amount’. And its this restrained approach that has recently launched the Lagom burger to stratospheric levels of stardom. An aged beef patty sizzles away on a plancha grill before it’s tucked up in a fairly slim milk-potato bun, with mayo, dill mustard, vinegar slaw, and good ol’ fashioned American cheese. And while he’s rustling that up for you? Enjoy the fact that you’re also sitting in a wonderfully cosy East London taproom.
Details: At Hackney Church Brew Co., 16 & 17 Bohemia Place, Hackney, E8 1DU | Book here
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Filthy Buns | Dalston
Aaaand right along at the opposite end of the burger structural integrity spectrum is Filthy Buns, a dedicated burger outfit that similarly started out as a fleeting residency… and has been extended so long, it’s now a permanent fixture at Dalston pub The Three Compasses. You won’t need any help navigating the menu: there’s about half a dozen meaty, and half a dozen vegan versions, plus the occasional artery-stuffing special like the Millionaire’s Short Rib with Peanut Biscoffy Butter. The patty’s excellent, but it’s really the details that make these burgers so irresistible: bourbon BBQ sauce; beefy ketchup; pickled pink shallots and ‘really good shit cheese’ elevate Filthy Buns’ offerings to true god-tier stuff.
Details: The Three Compasses, 99 Dalston Lane, London E8 1NH | Book here
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Bleecker Burger | Cannon Street, Victoria, Spitalfields, Shepherd’s Bush
What did the corporate lawyer say when she ate a burger? There’s no punchline – it’s the genuine origin story of one of London’s most successful burger joints. Zan Kaufman ate the best burger of all time while working in NYC, asked for their secret, then quit her job to launch a food truck here in Spitalfields Market. Over a decade later, Bleecker St Burger is going strong thanks to the quality of its burgers. The bright yellow American burger cheese is as good as it gets, as is the perfect burger sauce, the smashed grass-fed patty, and the option of a slither of black pudding to give the brain a little jolt of unexpected joy. Bleecker’s been crowned National Burger of the Year winners multiple times for good reason.
Details: See locations here
Need something to wash all that food down? Have a look our guide to pop up bars in London.