Malmaison Hotel & Brasserie, Farringdon - & one of the best burgers in London

Donald Russell 35 day aged entrecote

During a week when snowfall in London brought flights to a painful standstill, our city weekend break at the Malmaison Hotel in Farringdon was a little piece of utterly relaxing bliss. The fact that it houses the largely undiscovered gem that is the Malmaison Brasserie was just another bonus along the way.

I love staying in hotels. I love the fact you can mess the bed up and someone makes it for you while you're off having breakfast. I love the big fluffy towels that I don't have to wash. I love any shower that isn't our crappy shower at home. Our night at Malmaison was just a brief change, but it felt like a rejuvenating holiday - without having to spend the night sleeping at Heathrow under space blankets wondering when we'd get on the next flight out of there.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

The view from our room at Malmaison, overlooking Charterhouse Square

Best of all, the Malmaison Brasserie is just downstairs. The only thing I recalled about the brasserie before going there was that its burger made Young & Foodish's list of top 10 burgers in London (at number 4). Of course we had to have it.

The brasserie's location right by the Smithfield meat market is a clue to head chef, John Woodward's, passion for quality, local sourcing. All beef is sourced from Donald Russell who selects only grass fed, naturally reared beef, which is matured for a minimum of 28 days in Aberdeenshire. Cheeses are sourced from La Cave a Fromage and oysters are from Maldon Oysters. The list goes on.

Salmon & fried baby squid

Boudin noir with crispy poached egg

My seared, marinated salmon is perfectly cooked and moist, with ringlets of tender, fried baby squid and roasted hazelnuts (£7.25). TPG has the rich boudin noir with silky champ and crispy poached egg (£6.95). Both dishes are immensely enjoyable and the quality is clearly there.

The 250 gram entrecote is dry aged on the bone - tender, pink and sweet, it even came with some rich bone marrow on the side, and a smashing bearnaise (£20.95).

The excellent Mal burger

Which brings me to the excellent Mal burger - a 250 gram patty of ground beef with Gruyere, bacon, pickle, tomato and onion on a toasted sesame bun. It comes with homemade fries for £13.95. Lovely, pink and juicy on the inside, crunchy and well caramalised on the outside; it is indeed one of London's best burgers. Terrific stuff.

Creme brulee with a madeleine

Baked white chocolate cheesecake

To finish, a creamy vanilla creme brulee with a spiced madeleine combined 2 of my favourite sweets - both elements were quite lovely on their own, although putting them together doesn't really work as a combination. A very decent baked white chocolate cheese cake was sweet, smooth and dense. (Both desserts are £5.95).

The decor lacks some character. Despite that they've gone for dark tones and subdued lighting to create a slinky, stylish look, the brasserie has not quite shrugged off that feeling of being in the basement of a boutique hotel. But it's ok. And service is of a friendliness and quality to match the food. The private butcher's block room, with its exposed brickwork and long wooden table, would (I imagine) be a great nook for a large dinner party.

The brasserie also offers a set price menu - any 2 courses from the a la carte menu for £21 or any 3 such dishes for £25 (only very few dishes carrying a supplement).

  

From there, it was just a short toddle upstairs to our spacious room complete with fluffy carpet, chaise longue for reclining with a good book, dressing table (I totally want one), flat screen TV, wifi and a lovely, deep bath. The powerful shower with its big shower head is also great, and the toiletries at Malmaison deserve a special mention - they smell divine. Even better that the packaging requests that you take them home, so we happily obliged. There's also a decent little gym downstairs, which I tried for about 5 minutes and TPG for longer.

Any criticisms? There are no fluffy dressing gowns. This is a not a small thing for me - I love a big, fluffy dressing gown. If I had one, I'd be wearing it right now. And the mini bar is not amazing, but I never use it anyway. These quibbles are all I can think of - I loved the hotel, and the brasserie, and the location is terrific, with the Smithfield meat market, St Johns, Vinoteca and North Road Restaurant all within a few minutes walk. The short break has inspired me to do the whole city break thing more often - a change can be as good as a holiday, without all the travel hassles.

If you feel like some of the same, I recommend the Malmaison hotel, but I also recommend trying the brasserie for the steak and burger in particular, regardless of whether you're stumbling back to a bed upstairs.

Malmaison, 18-21 Charterhouse Square, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6AH (Tel: 020 7012 3700)

Greedy Diva was a guest of Malmaison, however room rates generally range from £205-£250 per night, with suites from £295-£475.

Bob Bob Ricard - The burger

I may have already mentioned that I'm quite partial to the fabulous dining extravaganza that is Bob Bob Ricard.

BBR has recently opened its beautiful downstairs bar, Bobby's Bar, to the public and I stopped by for drinks - red booths, low lighting, fun, fun, fun. Apparently there's also to be a piano. (There's currently a special deal throughout October - 10g of caviar, blinis, sour cream and a shot of Russian Standard Original Vodka for £15.50.)

Bobby's Bar

Back up in the restaurant, since my previous rant, I have fawned over the gorgeous quail egg starter, not to mention the amazing onglet which made me the best friend of every scavenger on the table (just do it).

I still need to try the lusciously pink lamb which, until now, I have only been making amorous eyes at from across the crowded room.

But it's the BBR Scotch Beef Cheeseburger that I'm having a moment about for now. I have adopted a concise new template below for occassions such as this.

Can it hold its metaphorical head high on a plate with the most esteemed burgers in my little black (burger) book?*
* Shake Shack, Eastside Inn, Little Owl, Bar Boulud, Hawksmoor, Goodman and Byron?

Yes, yes, oh my Lordy, yes.

Meat flavour (out of 10)

9. I have to leave some room for movement.

On the juicy to dry scale?

Way up there at the gorgeously juicy end of the spectrum

Charred on the outside, pink on the inside?

Perfectly, wonderfully so.

Toasted bun?

Char grilled on the inside. With sesame seeds.

What else is in there with the patty?

Choice of Montgomery cheddar or Kraft cheese slice. We tried both. Lettuce, tomato, pickle, red onion come with, as does a dainty little water bowl on the side. (Or maybe we just looked messy.)

My only quibble is that I'm not sure I like having my burger served split in half as pictured.

Cost?

It's a premium burger with a premium price tag. £13.75 with cheese. Add £1.50 for bacon and £1 for fried egg.

Do I have to wait more than an hour for it?

No. It's fast. And you can sit in beautiful surrounds drinking a cocktail while you wait. (I have no problem with the cocktail - burger pairing.)

Other important notes:

A fancy pants contender for another of London's best burgers. Highly recommended. But perhaps one for pay day.


Bob Bob Ricard, 1 Upper James Street, Soho, London, W1F 9DF (Tel: 0203 145 1000)

The Meatwagon, British Street Food - the quest for a great burger in London

There's a lot of hype about The Meatwagon. In many ways, it's deserved. Yianni Papoutsis is making some of the best burgers in London, in a style which is as close to my spiritual burger of worship at the Shake Shack in New York as can be found this side of the Atlantic. Yianni's burgers have been inspired by his travels around the USA, sampling all that its street food scene has to offer - and it shows.

But I waited OVER 2 HOURS for it. Out in the OPEN AIR. For a burger. And not even a Shake Shack burger with amazing fries and a salted caramel milk shake on the side.

The facts: I queued for around 30-40 minutes to place my order (having arrived 10 minutes after opening). Many, many people who joined the queue just after me missed out. They waited about an hour to find out - although it was surely obvious to The Meatwagon crew much earlier that the last 30-50 people were likely queuing for an hour in vain. It's one thing to queue and be rewarded (I've done it before - happily - at Shake Shack), but quite another for it to be a complete waste of time. I can't help but suspect The Meatwagon doesn't mind this - it adds to the hype afterall. However, the whole scenario gave rise to many unhappy punters who I am sure will not be queuing for the privilege again. What I didn't realise was that I would still have to wait nearly 2 hours after placing my order at The Meatwagon to have a burger in my grips. By this time, it was almost 10pm.



At least we had some entertainment, and beers to ease the pain.


Was it worth the wait?

Well, sort of. Certainly, for a burger fanatic, if you're one of the privileged few to score a burger. And if you're in good company to keep you entertained while your stomach feasts on your inner organs.

The burger is excellent and scores points for USA style authenticity. The knobbly, juicy (but crumbly on the outside) beef patty is nestled inside a toasted sourdough bun (Yianni has apparently worked with a baker to perfect the right recipe). The mix is completed with fresh crispy iceberg lettuce, red onion, melted cheese, ketchup and French's mustard - all of which work in perfect proportion and harmony for around £5. However, my burger was outrageously over-salted in parts and there was far too much butter on the bun - melted butter was dripping furiously onto my lap at one point and the taste of it was overwhelming at times. I haven't heard these complaints before, so perhaps they were a freak occurence - the foundations for a good thing were clearly there.

Others would agree - The Meatwagon recently won the British Street Food Award for Best Sandwich (2010).

The delay can (perhaps) partly be explained by the cooking method - the meat is placed on a very hot grill, squashed down to perfect patty size, flipped and then 2 wonderful slices of American style cheese are placed on top where they melt gloriously during the grilling process. The patty is also steamed under a metal dome over the grill during the process. Only a limited number of burgers can fit on the grill at once, and the process (it seems) is not to be hurried.

Would I do it again? Probably not. Not unless the van rolled up to the end of my street and threw me a bone to gnaw on during the wait. I understand why South Londoners have taken The Meatwagon to their hearts - particularly as it is usually positioned closer to home for them. However, I will not go out of my way for it again unless I overcome my sneaking suspicions that these guys are slightly taking the piss out of their customers - the "treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" school of thought has never been one that works on me.

Particularly when it's almost faster to fly to New York and have a guarantee of the world's best burger with sides to go.


The Meatwagon moves around and, when I visited, it was one of the street food vendors (including the fantastic Brewed Boy coffee trolley and the delicious Choc Star van) present at the Eat St event near the Towpath Cafe. After my burger, I feasted on some superb chocolate truffles and rocky road by Choc Star which I highly recommend. Brewed Boy's coffee is a personal favourite - you can find him on Rupert St, Soho during the working week. You can check The Meatwagon's website for its next location.

The new best burger in London....

Ok, ok it's asking for trouble to say it's the best burger in London. Because we all like different things, don't we. We fight with passion and spittle over cheese properties, bun type, the great mayo debate and the presence of the humble gherkin. And that's before we even get started on the outrageous use of cutlery.

So I'll change that to - "it's my favourite burger in London". (Because it's the best.)

So far, my list of besties has been limited to:
1. Bar Boulud 
2. Hawksmoor 
3. Goodman 
4. Byron 

Yes, I'm nothing if not original.

But now the title goes to ... [opens envelope] ... the Eastside Inn bar.

Yes, I was heading to legless on their fabulous cocktails when I ate it. Yes, I washed it down with the brilliant sommelier's secret stash of indulgent decanted something or other. And yes, I did see the face of Jesus in the ketchup dribbles on my plate.

But trust me, Bjorn has cracked the jackpot with this baby. Given the man's skills, he probably does not want to be known as the burger king of Farringdon. So it gives me no joy to offer him the crown.

The meat is perfectly charred, juicy and flavourful - there's a secret ingredient in there and I can tell it's going to take quite a few more vodka cocktails to get it out of him. The bun is a grilled brioche [tick].

It's £10 (or £9 without cheese if you are a weirdo). Steep for a burger? Well what price heavenly bliss?

And it's cheaper than Goodman's and Hawksmoor's anyway (but I still love you guys and will be sleeping on your doorstep on a regular basis when you open in Covent Garden).

If you disagree with me about how good it is, I'll shout you a burger at Byron. 


(I won't really.)

I would tell you how perfect the chips are with a special salt all of their own but, at this point, you might not believe me and will think I am on a blinkered rant. Trust me. Go there. Sit at the bar. Get yerself a wee cocktail. Tuck in your napkin. See the light.

Aaaaaaaaaaaa.....

Eastside Inn lounge bar, 40 St John Street, London EC1M 4AY (tel: 020 7490 9230)

The Eastside Inn bar opened next to the restaurant on 26 June 2010. I am still working on them for home delivery of the burgers.  (Oh, there's other nice stuff on the bar menu too. Or you can see my previous review of the bistro here. The links to my reviews of the other top burger places in London are within the above list in this post).


Postscript 3 September 2010: Sadly, it was announced today that The Eastside Inn has closed. I look forward to hearing about the next act of the talented duo, Bjorn and Justine van der Horst. Let's hope it includes the burger.