Chris G.
Yelp
I am an Honest fan.
I have tried a lot of places. I have eaten a lot of burgers. But none that have compared to the greatness that Honest Burgers has been offering me for a long, long time. I must admit I have been holding off on reviewing Honest for a while because I needed some London hamburgers to compare it to. And guess what? Honest are still undefeated champions in my estimation!
They cook the burgers to pinky perfection (although they are more than happy to serve it however you would prefer) and conseal them in a perfect, yet slightly sweet tasting bun. I have tried all of the variants that they offer here, but still my favourite is the plain classic simple hamburger - everything within is just perfect. The sweetness of the onion relish as it balances off the taste of the bun and the salty beef patty. Heaven! Combining this with what I believe to be my favourite chips currently being served in London and you have a heavenly combo. I think that Byron burgers are pretty good. However, I really feel that their standard of chips to let them down, and compare these to the rosemary salted Honest chips and you are really in a different league.
I think that they have done a good job in establishing the decor here that now runs cohesively through the rest of the Honest branches. Nothing too swish, more of a "shack" concept than fine dining, but I feel that this fits well within the context of eating a hamburger.
An area where I really feel that they have let themselves down on is adding a text based queueing app. As it used to be, if you wanted an Honest burger, you had to queue up and when a table was free you got a seat. On my latest visit to this branch, they had introduced a whole complicated system. I was told 15 minutes. I walked around the block and did some shopping for around 20 and I was still no closer to being number one in the queue, I decided to return to the restaurant where there was FOUR free tables available!!! FAIL! And not only did they fail, they upset me because I was so hungry!!!
= Please stop this silly process!=
The staff are trained well, on the whole. Without being over the top, they serve you well and have yet to let me down.
They offer a number of craft beers which I cannot really comment upon as I do not drink beer! However, I do often have their Honest cocktail which is a gin & cucumber-based affair and this is really great.
Another area where I think that they do well is that they do not add a service charge to the bill. I always feel that you inevitably get better service when the staff are actually working for their tip as opposed to knowing that very few people will ever question that it is on the bill. And with Honest, they do it right!
Honest, you are still my favourite burger in London. Just don't rest on your laurels. and quit putting prices up.