The burger is bouncing back, writes Tom Dorley
Things are looking up for the humble hamburger. Ferran Adrià of El Bulli is enlarging Fast Good, his Spanish fast-food chain, which has burgers on its menu. The molecular gastronomist went back to basics to encourage young chefs to keep it simple and to prove that good food does not take hours to eat or cost a fortune.
Burgers are also burgeoning closer to home, and I'm delighted. BóBó's, on Wexford Street, Dublin 2, is the brainchild of Jay Bourke, the man behind Eden and Café Bar Deli. It does inventive burgers with equally unusual sauces. Open only a couple of weeks, it didn't exactly wow me on the first visit. My burger was unexceptional, and my onion rings were greasy and burnt in places.
By contrast, Real* Gourmet Burger, in Dún Laoghaire, with a head start of three months, seems to be getting it right. This project is headed by David Larkin, who abandoned a career in IT in London to bring proper burgers to Dublin. All the beef is organic, sourced from Good Herdsmen, in Co Tipperary, and the rest of the meat is free-range. And whole thing is brilliantly child-friendly without putting off older customers.
Gourmet* has a branch at Midway Food Court, off the N7/N8 in Co Laois, and will open two more in Dublin before the summer: one in Smithfield, the other at Gallery Quay, in the south docklands.
Hamburgers cost between €7.50 and €8.95, chips (€3) are hand-cut from Maris Piper spuds and cooked in GM-free oil, and there's organic ice cream for pud. See www.realgourmetburger.ie.