Somewhat oddly located just north of Oxford Street, a loud and hip burger parlour that has opened with a cult following already in place; standards on our early-days visit were a touch up-and-down but, at their best, the burgers are of outstanding quality.
Could it have been Ms Maschler’s four star review? There was a queue – yes, a queue – outside this noisy burger parlour as we left, one sunny weekday lunchtime in late-November. Or perhaps it’s the fact that MEATliquor is the son of Meatwagon (a van) and #MEATEASY (a burger diner above a New Cross pub) – two burger venues which, during their relatively short lives, drove the foodie twitterati to heights of protein-fueled delirium. Whatever the cause, this is a joint that’s smoking hot.
Such is the temperature, indeed, that it’s almost redundant to ask whether the heat is really justified. The setting is certainly no great shakes. Given that its premises are just behind Debenhams, efforts to make the oddly-configured space hip by the application of graffiti – as if one were in some seedy Amsterdam boîte – just feel rather gauche. And the service ain’t so hot either. Such is the din that even the waitpersons have to stoop, cupping their ears, to hear what’s being ordered. And, communication finally established, the food can still take a long time to come.
So it must be all about the burgers, right? Well, up to a point. Intermittently, we could see what the fuss is about. What makes the perfect burger? Well, who’s to say, but, if you hit lucky here, as one of us did, you’ll probably get as close to finding out as most people in this country ever will. That’s not to say, however, that the star dish (which is pretty much the only dish, though it comes in various ways, and with a few good salads) is always beyond reproach. The double patties which came in the larger of the burgers we ordered were both somewhat dried out, – as Large Appetite bitterly observed, the solo offer was considerably better.
If the queue is to be believed, however, he may have been a touch unlucky. And the list of libations is certainly impressive – one reason we suspect this would make a great place to kick off a night on the town.
