When a British burger restaurant comes inspired by a roadtrip across America, it can go one of two ways. It can, in the worst case scenario, end up as a gimmicked mess, focusing more on the ‘Murican aesthetic than the food itself. Or it can take notes on the important bits: paying close attention to the beef, how it’s cooked, the kind of cheese used, how different burgers work best with different buns.
By the fact Almost Famous has made its way onto our list, you can work out pretty quickly which of the two categories it’s fallen in to.
With burger restaurants in America, it’s a way of life. And a burger is always the most popular menu item in any restaurant.
Beau Myers, founder of Almost Famous, to i News
It’s developed into something of a hamburger powerhouse in the North West of the UK. There are 5 brick-and-mortar locations across 3 different cities. They have an At Home service that opens sporadically, allowing you to try your hand at making an Almost Famous dinner in your own kitchen. They even sell merch (although at the time of writing, the £25 black hoodie is sold out).
It wasn’t always that way, though. In the beginning, Almost Famous was nothing more than a pop-up stand at the Manchester Food & Drink Festival that founders Beau Myers and Jon Kirby opened after being inspired during their American road trip. It was an instant hit: Almost Famous quickly became definitely famous among Manchester’s food-lovers.
To this day, you can see why. The menu in 2023 is pretty big and electic for a burger joint, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s got something for everyone: there are options that, for my taste, have too much going on. But my taste isn’t everyone’s taste, and who am I to judge if someone wants a burger covered in chorizo, waffle fries, and blue cheese? As mentioned in the first post on this site, these types of hamburgers won’t make the list for the simple reason that in any great hamburger, the star of the show has to be the beef. So it’s with a wide smile that I tell you: keep it simple at Almost Famous and you will uncover something really very very special.
Go for the Famous – it’s a classic double cheeseburger, garnished beautifully with a little lettuce and tomato, and a small dollop of their special sauce. It arrives in a red food basket, akin to something you’d find in countless diners and roadside hamburger joints across the United States. Look out the window and you’ll see grey skies that remind you that you’re in the British North West. But take a bite of the hamburger in front of you and you’ll be right there on the American road trip that inspired Almost Famous.
The brioche revolution has been an interesting one. Ordinarily, I’m not a huge fan of brioche buns for burgers, but I had no issue with this one. It gives you the soft, dense inner texture of a brioche but without the overpowering sweetness. It’s lightly toasted and, along with the salad, gives a gentle crunch to each bite. The sauce is pretty unique too: it’ll remind you of any classic burger sauce but with a strong smokey taste.
As always, the star of this show is the incredible beef patty. It’s thin but not smashed, so you get a juicy centre with this incredible rich flavour. It’s so tender, you could swear it was a piece of slow cooked beef brisket. You could honestly take away every single other element of this hamburger, leaving just the patty, and you would not have one single complaint.
In our first recommendation – Bleecker Burger, in London – we noted how Bleecker’s beef came from Aubrey Allen, a world renowned butcher known for providing their meat to the Royal Household. Almost Famous get their beef from the same place, and it’s probably the best beef in the entire country. Needless to say, these guys take their hamburgers seriously.
After it launched in the form of a pop-up stall at a food festival, its first permanent location was in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. The hype was unbelievable, partly due to the brilliant social media campaign around its opening, but mostly due to good old-fashioned word of mouth. A ‘no reservations’ policy meant that hungry punters were literally left queuing out of the door to get in. You’d often be left queuing for well over an hour. And I don’t know of anyone who didn’t think it was worth the wait.
It’s much easier, now, with the ability to book a table at any of the 5 restaurants. I visited Liverpool’s branch of Almost Famous. There’s one in Leeds too. But it’s a Manchester-born business, and the city’s fingerprints are all over it.
The hype was Oasis-level. And somehow, the product lives up to it.
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Almost Famous almostfamousburgers.com/
Location: 11-13 Parr Street, Liverpool, L1 4JN
Price: £17.50 for the Famous burger with bacon fries
While you’re there: Try the Bacon Bacon fries. A mix of crispy regular fries and sweet potato fries, covered in baconnaise and bacon bits.
Hamburger Britannia 