Something has to be pretty good to make me take a walk through Picadilly Gardens.  Even following the council's recent minor face lift, it still feels like the kind of place which you try to avoid unless it’s unavoidable.  Perhaps a bit dramatic, but you get my point and if you actually live in Manchester then you'll probably agree too?

So a few weeks ago when a new branch of Burgerism popped up bang in the middle of the gardens, there was plenty of predictable social media driven fuss via a mass activation campaign, largely from influencers who were as happy as ever to flaunt LHF advertising laws by posting shots of comped burgers to promote a mini chain.  Clearly, every single opinion was amazing, probably the best burgers in Manchester etc, whilst holding burgers into the sky and all the usual freebie driven nonsense.

I've personally been to Burgerism twice before, once to the rock and roll feeling industrial unit branch near Media City, and also to the one inside NQ64 down in London's trendy Shoreditch.  Neither occasion blew me away to be honest, despite the massive amounts of hype which have surrounded Burgerism since their initial launch many moons ago. 

I didn’t want to be anti-Manc patriotic though, so never wrote about either experience.  Also, I made excuses in that the one from Salford was a takeaway which was driven 30 minutes home before being consumed.  Similarly, my London Burgerism experience was dropped off by a bloke on a bike for me to eat in the office, al desco.  So I put both flat deliveries, literally, down to that.

So, with a new city centre branch opened I was keen to give the product one last roll of the dice and headed down to brave the wonders of Piccadilly Gardens, and see exactly what the new site holds in comparison to my previously flat experiences.

Inside it’s a nice enough gaff.  Functional and bright, but the self-ordering tills are in a really badly considered place right in front of the door, which created a queue of people almost out of the door of people wanting to use them, rather than just going to order at the till to make the nice gent earn his pay.  We chose the latter, 1 because we get that tech isn’t always better than humans, and 2, because it was faster since most people disagree with point 1.

After a short wait, our food started to make its way onto the pass.  The chicken burger sat there for a bit whilst waiting on the other items to land, our hospo trained eyes peering at it, feeling its pain under the heat lamps.  It didn’t take too much longer for the rest of the goods to come, at which point there was sadly no free seats so we had no choice but to once again take our wares away, only this time the office in Mcr is a mere 5 minute walk away.  So surely that would be pretty much as solid as eating in right?

The fries were very decent, hot, crispy/fluffy and seasoned well using a flavoured salt.  Very solid.  Onto the burgers, and they are handsomely packaged with a nice little handwritten message inside the lid of each box.  I'd hate to be the pour soul whose job that is before service.  A single napkin and a novel chewy sweet sat in the bag too.  Maybe do one per burger though guys?

We unwrapped our Freebird with Cheese and it was tidily assembled, headlined with a chunky looking slab of nicely sauced breast.  Biting into it, things were OK.  Not life changing or impression making, but tasty enough.  The chicken was a tad tough which I don’t think was related to the heat lamps in all honesty, just general overcooking.  Some slaw freshened the whole thing up, and the bun was the right density and size to carry things well.   Decent, but just that.

Moving onto the other burger and we went with the Wholly Double, which is Burgerism's flagship.  4 smash patties, turkey 'bacon', pickles, and a slab of fresh tomato which for me doesn’t ever improve a burger.  It looked suitably gluttonous as we peeled back the sexy black paper, but on picking it up things were impossible to keep in one piece.  Everything was just so greasy and sloppy. We took 'nice' photos from the best possible angles to make both burgers look as tidy as possible, but the bottom bun was so wet that it barely still existed.  Don't get me wrong, the patties were good quality and well-cooked and it all tasted decent, but the burger was just so unforgivably messy to eat and generally a bit meh as a result.

As per the last 2 runs, I again found myself mentally trying to make excuses for everything that was wrong.  Maybe that 5 minute walk was to blame?  Maybe I should have only ordered the burger with 2 smash patties to make it less messy?  But actually, if an already takeaway packaged burger travelling 300 metres and containing 4 patties is what makes it greasy and sloppy, then don’t serve I with 4 patties and just make the product better!

At the end of the day, I really want to like Burgerism, and as much as most of the editorial crew here at RoM are knocking on slightly and tend to write more about fancier grub than burgers etc, we still know a good burger and truly adore them, when they are good.  But I'm sorry, this just wasn’t and that greasy papered photo doesn’t lie.

I usually hate name dropping in write ups, as it can be plain cringy and purposely self-indulgent.  But for comparison, just a few weeks ago I ate about 13 burgers during a food driven weekend in Copenhagen.  The very best in our view was from a place called Gasoline Grill, and it was pretty much perfect in terms of ingredient quality, assembly, texture, juiciness, saucing, and every other metric that you can apply to a burger.  There's a lot of true gastronomy in a burger, despite it being a humble product.  Also Popl Burger, driven by the recently cancelled best restaurant on earth, Noma, is absolutely beyond comparison to Burgerism.

Even Supernova in London is miles ahead of Burgerism too, with their simple, well-assembled, high-quality burgers which contain no trace of sloppiness or grease.  Such points of reference are what subconsciously define your standards as a food consumer, and as ever, our thoughts are based on objective facts not subjective feelings.  Everybody has their favourite but ultimately a sloppy, messy burger isn’t a well-executed one, and this just isn’t in the conversation over what makes a good burger.

So, I've finally conceded that trying to like something so hard probably just means that actually, you don’t.  And at a couple of quid under 30 notes for two burgers, a single portion of fries, and a can of Coke, it's almost Copenhagen prices without being remotely close to the quality.  Three strikes and you're out Burgerism.  Manc Patriotism can only carry things so far.