<img src="https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&amp;c2=6035250&amp;cv=2.0&amp;cj=1&amp;cs_ucfr=0&amp;comscorekw=Food%2CLife+and+style%2CUK+news%2CFood+safety"> Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation

Camembert with that, sir?

This article is more than 18 years old
Move over, Ronald McDonald: gourmet burger joints - selling posh meat, in posh buns, and with posh extras - are the next big thing. Josh Lacey on fast food for an organic generation

Just like you, I don't eat in McDonald's. I used to. I'd have a Big Mac and medium fries, and love it. But that was in the old days, before Fast Food Nation, before Supersize Me, before McLibel, before José Bové, before Slow Food, before nutrition and morality and health and ecology became so infuriatingly intertwined. I haven't touched a Big Mac for two years. I just can't do it. Not even alone. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I couldn't stand the guilt, the shame, the giveaway smell that lingered on my clothes and breath, alerting friends and family that I had stepped beneath those golden arches and surrendered to my basest instincts.

But every now and then, I still want to sink my teeth into the satisfying squelch of soft beef slathered with mayonnaise and slapped between the twin paps of a soft bun. So do you (stalwart vegetarians aside). Admit it. And so the market has supplied our demand, providing us with a range of posh burger restaurants, high-class versions of McDonald's and Wimpy and Burger King. These are burgers for the organic generation.

The model of them all is called the Gourmet Burger Kitchen - hereafter known as GBK - which started the trend and remains the biggest, best known and most successful. The first GBK opened in March 2001 and there are now eight, carefully positioned in London's most comfortable suburbs: Battersea, Notting Hill, Belsize Park, Chiswick, Richmond, Fulham, Putney and West Hampstead.

Any good idea will immediately spawn imitators. The high streets of London are now packed with smart little restaurants, decorated in chrome, wood and leather, serving posh burgers made from posh meat in a posh bun. The Fine Burger Company, Hamburger Union, the Real Burger Company, Burger Shack ... Alongside Best Gastropub and Best Local Restaurant, the annual Time Out eating and drinking awards even offers a prize for London's Best Burger. The craze is spreading. Edinburgh has Relish and the Gourmet Burger Co. The Ultimate Burger has three branches in London and a fourth in Nottingham.

GBK was founded by three thirtysomething blokes from New Zealand. Greg Driscoll, Brandon Allen and Adam Wills had been to school and university together, but arrived in London separately, two of them working in the City, the third bumming his way round the world.

Looking at London, watching how people ate, seeing the sudden awakening of British tastebuds after centuries of neglect, they noticed a space for a type of restaurant that had done well at home. "Food made with good quality, fresh ingredients is part of any New Zealander's upbringing," says Driscoll, spokesman for the Kiwi trio. A chain called Burger Wisconsin first opened in Wellington in 1989 and now has almost 30 branches across the islands. (McDonald's has 150.) "It's that casual but quality food experience you get in New Zealand we wanted to bring to London," says Driscoll.

Driscoll, Allen and Wills opened their first GBK on Northcote Road in southwest London, a smart and very gentrified avenue running between Clapham and Wandsworth commons. "We were all familiar with the area," says Driscoll. "Northcote Road has always had a good feel about it." The area is often referred to as Nappy Valley, babies being 10 a penny here. You'll also find a lot of 4x4s and organic food shops. In other words, this is perfect posh burger territory.

To advise on the menu, they recruited another New Zealander, Peter Gordon. He was an astute choice, a well-known and very fashionable chef. Gordon inhabits the high end of the food market, co-owning and cooking at Providores, a pricey fusion restaurant in Marylebone. But he's a populist too - he has written four books and appeared as a guest cook on the TV shows hosted by Nigel Slater and Jamie Oliver. Peter Gordon's name on the menu put the gourmet into GBK.

Of course, there's nothing new about the odd posh burger. The first Hard Rock Cafe opened in London in 1971, serving nachos, fajitas, caesar salads and lots of burgers, charging a premium rate, aiming itself firmly at tourists. In the Boxwood Cafe at the Berkeley Hotel, Gordon Ramsey will serve you a veal and foie gras burger. Stroll a few hundred yards along Knightsbridge to Zuma and you can pick up a wagyu burger for £55. The price includes chips and a slice of tomato. (Wagyu, in case you're wondering, is a Japanese breed of cattle. The wagyu minced by Zuma spend their short and profitable lives grazing on the dewy grass of New Zealand.)

But these days, posh burgers are everywhere, and you don't have to put up with astronomical prices or awful music to get one. The real point about today's posh burgers, actually, is that they're not particularly posh. They're not the upper crust of burgers. They are proudly bourgeois. They're plump, confident, healthy and very middle-class. A gourmet burger should really be spelt "burgher": it's food fit for the discerning, educated palates of prosperous gentlemen and gentlewomen who would not dirty their fingers, stomachs or consciences by eating in McDonald's.

A gourmet burger is built from fresh ingredients. The meat is probably organic, certainly free range, and possibly comes from something more exotic than a mere cow. A deer or a lamb, say. Maybe even a tuna. It is garnished with unusual lettuce and a slice of an extravagantly large tomato. Rather than the milkshakes that you would be offered in McDonald's, posh burger companies will tempt you with expensive Czech beers and freshly squeezed orange juice.

The rules in this new wave of restaurants differ from those of the standard fast-food joint. The way that GBK, for example, works is like this: you go inside, sit at a table and look at a menu. You go to the counter, order and pay. You are handed your drinks. You sit down again. Five minutes later, a waiter brings your food to the table. It's more or less fast food. There are no puddings, because they would tempt you to linger for too long, occupying a table that could be given to the next person in the queue. And there's no service charge, which knocks 10 or 15% off your bill. (Well, that's not quite true. There's a bowl for tips by the cash desk. But who's going to leave a tip before they've eaten?)

As for the burgers ... well, the burgers are great. They won't be the best you've ever tasted, but they are far superior to the sickly, processed offerings in your average high-street burger chain. GBK's burgers are big, tender and juicy. All are cooked identically, and slapped in identical buns, but they come with an interesting range of toppings: blue cheese, avocado and bacon, garlic mayonnaise. You can even have a Kiwiburger, stuffed with beetroot, egg, cheese and pineapple.

For this, you'll pay seven quid. That's without chips or a drink. Of course, good beef costs more than the cheap sheep used in kebabs or the mozzarella on a pizza, but posh burgers still make great profits. A year ago, the three founders sold GBK for a deal that was dependent on reaching particular profitability targets. This October, they met them, and netted £7.4m for themselves and their original investors.

Their burgers might be different, but the actual operations of GBK and McDonald's are pretty similar. When the McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, opened their first restaurant in 1948, they faithfully followed the teachings of Henry Ford. They used assembly-line techniques to cut costs and waiting times, dividing particular labours between different workers, mass-producing food with scary efficiency and remarkable savings. Their partner, Ray Kroc, kept strict control on every franchise, forcing his franchisees to follow precise rules on recipes, prices, design and every other aspect of the operation. Wherever you went, you would find an identical branch of McDonald's. Whether you were standing at the counter in Arlington or Albuquerque, Los Alamos or Los Angeles, your cheeseburger would arrive quickly, cost little and taste just the same. You knew exactly what you were getting.

Likewise, there's no difference between the GBKs in Putney and West Hampstead. And five years from now, when GBK is a familiar name up and down British high streets, there will be no difference between the GBKs of Tunbridge Wells and Jesmond. The new owners of GBK will make sure of that: they have prior experience of running a countrywide chain of 300 restaurants.

GBK is now owned by Clapham House, a company created by David Page, who used to manage Pizza Express. He started there as a washer-up in 1973, became manager of the Kingston branch, bought his own franchise in Chiswick a decade later and eventually ran the company. Two years ago, when he sold his share of Pizza Express, Page wanted to continue working with restaurants. But he didn't want the hassle of actually setting up or running restaurants. So what could he do?

Clapham House was the answer. It's a shell company created with the specific intention of buying very small chains of interesting restaurants and turning them into quite big chains of interesting restaurants. Clapham House currently owns three tiny chains: GBK, the Real Greek (three branches scattered around London) and the Bombay Bicycle Club (three branches plus a delivery network that covers about a third of the city).

All three are going to expand fast. If you live in a prosperous, middle-class area of London, expect to see a branch of GBK, RG or BBC arriving in your neighbourhood PDQ. If you live outside London or London-on-Sea (Brighton), you may have to wait a little longer. Clapham House's chief executive Paul Campbell defends this decision by saying "London is a good market" and "it's easier to manage tight geography", but the company's real reason for staying in the southeast is pretty obvious: they aren't convinced that there are enough middle-class, middle-income gastronomes to justify expansion into the rest of Britain.

The secret of GBK's success is very simple. "The burgers are just wonderful." Of course, he would say that, but he links it to a wider phenomenon. "People are more and more into eating out," he says. Like Pizza Express, GBK offers "informal, casual dining at 10 to 12 quid a head", and people are happy to pay that much regularly, rather than just going to a restaurant for a special occasion.

Although GBK is going to expand fast, Campbell says it won't change. Between nine and 18 branches will open next year, and a further 10 to 15 every year after that, but the distinctiveness isn't going to be diluted. Greg Driscoll agrees: "We had an idea which we actually care about and this makes us different to the copycat operations that have sprung up."

Despite these assurances, though, GBK's position at the top of the posh burger food chain is already looking insecure. It was one of four runners-up in this year's Time Out Best Burger award, losing the prize to a small restaurant in Camden. As Time Out's critic wrote: "Deftly stealing the crown long held by GBK, Haché is London's new burger-bar-to-beat."

Haché? What does that mean? And how on earth do you pronounce it?

Husband and wife Berry and Sue Casey seem a little weary about these questions, which they have been asked so regularly that they've painted a guide to pronunciation on the restaurant's wall. Haché should be pronounced "ashay" and means "chopped" in French.

Connoisseurs of a good burger will be extremely happy at Haché. The meat is soft, the buns are squidgy, and you have a choice of thin or thick chips. The burgers themselves cost between six and eight quid - about the same as GBK - and you can choose how the meat is cooked. The atmosphere is closer to a restaurant than a fast-food outlet. Waiters take your order at the table. You'll be likely to leave a tip. There are puddings, too, including a great apple crumble, surrounded by custard and topped by a strawberry, the perfect riposte to the mass-produced bar of sugar-coated sludge that McDonald's dares to call an apple pie.

The Caseys made their first venture into the restaurant business eight years ago, buying a creperie in Bicester Village, an upmarket shopping centre near Oxford. They opened Haché a year ago, choosing a spot in the part of north London where they have lived for several decades. All the meat comes from one farm in the Scottish Lowlands. As part of their Christmas bonus, staff are given a meal for two in the restaurant, so everyone, even the washers-up, gets to experience Haché as a customer. And no one is allowed to swear in the kitchen.

Such cute quirks are exactly what you'd expect from a small restaurant run by a husband and wife in their own neighbourhood, and probably wouldn't survive in a bigger operation. But Haché is a posh burger restaurant, and so expansion seems inevitable, an integral aspect of the business plan. Winning the Time Out award has meant that "people are approaching us", says Berry. Bankers have been sampling the burgers. "There seem to be quite a lot of people who are keen to get involved, but we have to find someone who identifies with our aspirations." Sue would love to open a Haché in Brighton. If Newcastle wasn't so cold, Berry would be tempted to open one there. They laugh when I ask if every British high street will soon have a Haché. Oh, no, they'd be happy with two branches. Maybe three ...

So, should Ronald McDonald be quaking in his big red boots?

Right now, there are almost 1,300 branches of McDonald's in the UK, and 650 Burger Kings. Stacked against them, there are eight GBKs, four Ultimate Burgers, three Hamburger Unions and one Haché, plus a few others. By this time next year, the number of GBKs will have doubled or tripled. Haché might have gone from one to two. The others will have added a few branches or gone bust.

I ask the Caseys what they think. Are they in competition with McDonald's? They shake their heads. "Only in so far as we're in competition with everybody."

And when did the Caseys last actually eat in McDonald's?

They look at one another, trying to remember. Having four children, they used to eat in McDonald's a lot. "But not for a long, long time." The last time, they decide, was their son's second birthday. Twenty years ago.

"Oh, dear," says Berry. "That sounds a bit snobby, doesn't it?"

Not really. Not to me, anyway. But it can only be a matter of months before McDonald's starts its own range of gourmet burgers. The beef will come from grass-fed cattle on an organic Scottish farm. The buns will have an Italian name. They'll be served with fat chips and frilly lettuce and garlic mayo, and washed down with a kumquat milkshake or some Slovakian lager. And then, perhaps, the heirs of Ray Kroc will finally tempt us back through their golden arches.

Explore more on these topics

Most viewed

Most viewed