When you stride into Spitalfields Market – a kind of foodie utopia nestled on the east side of London – you’ll find queues. And as you weave through the food vendors and the stalls and the busy-Londoners-on-lunch-breaks, you’ll notice one queue that snakes on, and on, and on, quite a lot longer than the rest. Follow this queue, and you’ll arrive on the doorstep of something very special indeed.
It’s simple: Bleecker Burger is a phenomenon. And for good reason. It scored the top prize of Burger Of The Year at the National Burger Awards in 2020, and its famous Bleecker Black burger was awarded ‘Tastiest Burger in the World’ back in 2015. It’s so highly revered that hamburger historian and author George Motz chose Bleecker as the only UK stop on his European tour in 2022. Talk about a seal of approval.
Bleecker’s roots lie firmly within London’s street food boom of the 2010s, and despite the business’ modest expansion into 4 permanent bricks-and-mortar restaurants across the capital, the product itself remains firmly tethered to its humble origins.
“My favourite place to trade ever was the Gherkin. My background is in New York, where it’s about speed – it’s lunch and it’s exciting”
Bleecker founder Zan Kaufman speaking to Foodism
For the first 3 years of its existence, every burger that Bleecker sold was from the side of an old van that founder Zan Kaufman converted into a food truck when she moved from New York in 2012. And the principles that defined the early days of Bleecker still remains strong today.
The menu is minimal to say the least, with only 6 hamburger options available and the first four of those being a variation on each other: a cheeseburger, a bacon cheeseburger, and double versions of each. They’re accompanied by the ‘Blue Burger’ – which replaces the slice of American cheese you’ll find on the standard sandwich with blue cheese – and the Symplicity burger, a vegetarian alternative.
Unless you have a particular aversion to pork, the hamburger you’ll want to try is the Bacon Double cooked medium. It’s not a flashy burger: it comes with two patties, two slices of American cheese, two rashers of streaky bacon, thinly sliced onion, and a perfect amount of Bleecker’s beautiful house sauce. It’s simple, but it really is a phenomenal piece of food. On this particular visit to Bleecker, a friend who accompanied me summed the experience up with one simple and perfect sentence: “it is everything you would want a burger to be”. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The soft, airy bun comes from a Malaysian bakery in London. Bleecker’s onions are freshly sliced throughout every day. The beef comes from Aubrey Allen, the family-owned butcher that has supplied the Royal Household with meat, poultry and game since 2007. That means this is the same beef that was served to The Queen, and continues to be served to King Charles to this day. Seriously.
There’s no resistance: when you take a bite of this burger, your teeth glide effortlessly through every single layer. The patty is so tender, it could quite easily be the subject of a Marvin Gaye song. Interestingly, the onion is placed between the two patties while they’re still on the flattop – a unique move that, according to Bleecker, sees it act as a palate cleanser between mouthfuls of beef.
And the flavour. Oh my god the flavour. Every single element of this hamburger complements the others flawlessly. The onion provides a gorgeous crunch, while the salty bacon gives an extra burst of flavour with every bite. Ordinarily I’d say a hamburger’s whole is greater than the sum of its parts but, considering the high quality ingredients used in the making of this piece of culinary genius, I’d say Bleecker’s Bacon Double is pretty much exactly the sum of its parts. Those searching for hamburger perfection may not need to look any further.
The newest of Bleecker’s four restaurants opened in 2019 in the food court of Westfield in West London. It’s the largest shopping centre in the UK, and one of the largest in Europe, so the competition is strong – it’s neighboured by countless options, from other cuisines: Japanese, Mediterranean, Mexican, South Asian. It’s also surrounded with direct rivals, massive chains like Five Guys, Byron, and Gourmet Burger Kitchen. But, just like at their first permanent spot at Spitalfields, their queue is always longer than everyone else’s. Brave the queue, and when you sit down – even as the horizon is awash with designer clothes and shoe stores – simply close your eyes, and you’ll find yourself transported right back to a wobbly stool, right next to the food truck that started it all.
Bleecker’s motto is Commitment To The Burger, and it’s very evidently not an empty slogan. But aside from the motto, their website also lists the company’s ‘vision’: “To have an equal world, where Bleecker is the best burger.”
Humanity has not yet have delivered on the first part. But Bleecker may well have on the second.
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Bleecker Burger bleecker.co.uk
Location: Spitalfields Market, London, E1 6AA
Price: £17.75 for a Bacon Double with fries
While you’re there: Try the Oreo shake. A blend of Bleecker’s own soft-serve ice cream, chocolate, and Oreo pieces.
Hamburger Britannia 