Can an American (Richard Wendorf) and a Brit (Tim Newark) reach the same flavourful conclusions about the burger offering in Bath? Focusing their attention on four restaurants in the centre of the city where a proper cheeseburger is a major feature on the lunch menu, it seems they have found common ground. Words by Richard Wendorf.
Their guidelines: to dine anonymously and pay their own way. Order a burger and chips with no additional frills (no mincing about). Consider the taste and juiciness of the meat, the medley of tastes within the bun, the quality of the chips and other sides, and the attractiveness of the venue. But the quality of the burger should reign supreme.
Because hamburgers are considered lunch food in America (never for dinner unless you’re a young child), Tim and Richard have only visited venues that are open for lunch, which eliminates a few places (such as Magu and Hudson’s Steakhouse) that might also be sampled.
The Coppa Club (The Bath Townhouse)
Located in the former premises of The Gap, the Coppa Club has tastefully restored many of the Art Deco features of the two-storey space. ‘The Coppa Burger’ is strategically located in the centre of its menu, offering a British beef patty cooked pink, lettuce, tomato, pickles, smoked Cheddar, and burger sauce.
Tim asked for his burger to be cooked to ‘done,’ and it was. Richard asked for the pink burger, and it arrived ‘done,’ whereas in the past it has always been pink. Compensation came in the form of a terrific bun (firm, with plenty of seeds on top) and pencil-thin fries that were first-rate. This may have been the thickest burger we ate, although the cheese and burger sauce needed a bit of reinforcement from our old standbys, mustard and ketchup. All in all, a very pleasant lunch in an attractive space. Price: £17.50.
The Coppa Club, 18-19 Old Bond Street; coppaclub.co.uk/the-bath-townhouse
The Crescent Restaurant
This small restaurant is located in the former premises of Rustica Bistro, the ristorante Italiano. The new restaurant proudly proclaims ‘The Crescent Burger’ on its menu and its cheeseburger features crispy prosciutto, blue or camembert cheese, rocket, and black-pepper mayo, with a healthy serving of good fries on the side.
We chose to make it a blue burger and we had a choice of how we wanted it to be cooked. We chose juicy (on the light side of medium) – and very juicy it was, with good mince flavour and a brioche bun that held up quite well. The blue cheese added nicely to the overall medley of flavours, but didn’t overpower them. The Crescent has sweet-potato fries on its menu, and they were also very good. So Richard raises two hands to the smallest of the five venues we visited. Price: £18.
The Crescent Restaurant, Margaret’s Buildings; crescent-restaurant-bath.co.uk
The Marlborough Tavern
The MT is a Bathonian favourite, a welcoming haven on the fringe of the Royal Crescent. The Tavern is known for a variety of dishes, but their cheeseburger can easily stand up to any of its rivals. Tim actually thinks it approaches a trifecta.
A trifecta? Yes: meat, bun, and cheese. The MT Burger comes with a slightly charred exterior but is surprisingly juicy inside. The cheese is Applewood smoked cheddar, which intensifies the taste of the meat, and the bun is solid enough to contain the juice. The MT Burger also includes bacon jam, sliced pickles, and a house burger sauce. All in all, an excellent specimen, accompanied by good, plentiful fries and a soupçon of delicious coleslaw (Richard could have eaten more of that!). Price: £19
Marlborough Tavern, 35 Marlborough Buildings; marlborough-tavern.com
The Walcot
This venue is now at the heart of a culinary empire that comprises its pub, restaurant, and nightclub on Walcot Street, Solena in The Empire, Green Street Butchers, a sourdough bakery off the Lower Bristol Road, and the Little Walcot in Frome. We ate at the restaurant, always a pleasant space even when the holiday parties have begun in earnest. The Walcot cheeseburger is juicy and tasty, basking in good cheddar cheese and a very nice burger sauce. The mince comes from Green Street, and the juiciness of the burger does tend to dissolve the brioche bun – unless, of course, the mixture of enticing flavours prompts you to finish it off fairly quickly. The fries are crispy and nicely seasoned with herbs. Our verdict (as Tim raises his glass): a commendable burger in a smart setting. Price: £19 for the classic burger and fries.
The Walcot, 90B Walcot Street; walcothousebath.com
Some conclusions
First of all, it’s not difficult to find a first-rate cheeseburger in a Bathonian restaurant these days. We enjoyed each of our lunches and would gladly repeat our perambulation of the city’s beefy cuisine. Atmosphere counts for something, but not as much as with a romantic dinner for two. But even with this proviso, each of these establishments is attractive enough, and two of them – The Coppa Club and Walcot House – have been particularly spruced up.
As for the burgers themselves, we’ve drawn the following conclusions.
Meat: for health reasons, restaurants have to cook their burgers to a certain state of doneness – and that’s a good thing. But hitting that target and keeping the mince juicy and flavourful is not an easy thing to do. So our hats are off to those that are especially adept at this.
Extras: with the exception of The Crescent, which adds crispy prosciutto to its burger, our restaurants did not attempt to gild the lily. We think that this is helpful for a comparative experiment such as ours, but we both agree that ‘toppings’ can be terrific. Bacon, prosciutto, beef short rib, sautéed onions, jalapeños – you name it, we’d be happy to try it.
Buns: we are not fetishists about buns, which come in a variety of forms: white flour, potato flour, brioche, whole meal, sourdough, with poppy seeds or burnt onion. We really have only two criteria: the bun should be soft enough to mesh well with what it contains, and firm enough to contain the meat’s juices.
Cheese: we have easy agreement on this. All of the burgers we sampled (no! we ate them) had plentiful cheese, but we think that a smoked cheese intensifies the flavour of the beef. If you adore blue cheese, on the other hand, it always adds punch to the overall taste of the burger.
Fries: Richard is a purist, whereas Tim enjoys a good plate of dirty fries. Sorry, Tim: all of the chips and fries we tasted were very good, and cheese, onions, and bacon were not allowed anywhere near them.
Prices: no great differences here; the burgers all cost between £17.50 and £20.