Tonight is burger night! After visiting L’Atelier du Burger and 231 East st. I opted for a different experience and stopped at Burger&Fils. Located few meters from my hotel, this burger place feels upscale and homey at the same time. Order at the bar, grab your soft drinks and choose your table; the waitress will get you the burgers. They claim to have your burger “sur mesure”, Five Guys style. Choose as many ingredients as you like, again, the five guys way. They have a burger of the month, today’s was “Bacon and goat cheese burger with spinach and walnuts oil.”
The place is unconventional; red leather chairs, American inspired photos decorate the walls, a bar, an open fridge for soft drinks and beers, a big black chandelier, white bricks, a chimney, and a television. There’s nothing fast food, street food or burger about this place.
The cheeseburger: the bun is a bit too sticky and doesn’t look fresh, a load of vegetables is not balanced by a thick patty but a thin one that’s burned on the sides. Ketchup is found in one spot and not spread around. I didn’t feel mustard and mayonnaise. Eat the meat alone, it chews like gum; far from being up to French standards.
The burger of the month: a chewy meat patty, dry ingredients, no sauce! That’s close to being inedible. No balance, no love, no knowhow in the art of making burgers. Trying to copy Five Guys, unfortunately, didn’t work.
The fries are too small, like the rest of yesterday’s batch, dry and not crunchy without having a tender heart: they’re more like oily chips.
This burger place knows nothing about burgers! Unfortunately, the meat needs to be changed, cooking time is twice what it should be, sauces are missing and the fries are ridiculously bad. I’ll have a Five Guys next time.
