London, UK
Dirty Burger just opened a new branch in East London, at the base of Shoreditch House. This comes from the Soho House Group, who are also behind the very popular Pizza East and Chicken Shop. Dirty Burger also has locations in Kentish Town, Whitechapel and Vauxhall, none of which are central enough for it to have become something that everyone has tried. You have to make a bit of an effort to try this burger. I first ate Dirty Burger when they parked their food truck outside Boxpark for one day only. I went over to the little window and had a look at the goods, and it looked promising. I ordered the reasonably priced Cheeseburger for £6 and dug in. It was so juicy, so cheesy and running with hot mustard. I was very impressed, and finished it very quickly. I saw a sign saying they were opening a permanent spot just across the road, and this was good news indeed.
On the occasion of the opening, everything on the menu was 50% off. This meant that you could get a burger, milkshake, and fries for £7! As expected there was a long line at around dinner time, so I returned just before closing time at 11 pm. My friends and I ordered onion fries, cheeseburgers, fries and a chocolate milkshake. We started with the onion fries, which were tasty, but a bit too greasy. It was challenging to identify any actual onion with all the batter. The fries were crinkly and crispy, and really, really good! The milkshake was extremely chocolatey and filling, and didn't have the fluffy quality of Lucky Seven, nor the ice cream texture of Byron. I guess it's good that they have developed a quite unique recipe, but it wasn't my kind of thing. When we got to the burgers, one of my friends got unlucky, she ordered first, and got given one of the burgers that were already cooked and wrapped, so the cheese wasn't runny anymore, and it was getting cold. My burger was freshly made, and looked pristine. Despite this, it didn't live up to my memory from the food truck version. This one was slightly drier, and required some extra ketchup and mayonnaise, whereas the previous one was perfectly juicy. This could be because I came at the end of a long day with a never-ending queue. It was nevertheless very enjoyable, and I will certainly visit again, in hope of one day finding the perfect one that I tried the first time. Dirty Burger lives up to its name; you get dirty from the sauce running down your wrist, and despite this juiciness, the bun remains perfectly intact. To help out with the mess, each burger comes with a handy wet-wipe. This place will definitely take away a serious chunk of the client base from Byron just down the road.
