HONEST BURGERS

THE CHAIN

A relative newcomer to the burger scene, Honest Burgers has opened nine restaurants across London since launching its flagship branch in Brixton in 2011. It’s currently exploring options for expanding nationwide.

THE BEEF ‘All of our beef is British, 28 days aged and grass-fed,’ says co-founder Tom Barton. ‘We get it from the Ginger Pig farm in Yorkshire, which specialises in traditional butchery techniques that help to ensure the meat is of the highest quality. When we opened our first restaurant in Brixton, the Ginger Pig guys wouldn’t deliver because the quantities we needed weren’t large enough. So I’d cycle all the way to their butchers in Marylebone and bring back as much as I could carry in a rucksack. When I got to about 18kg – which was a hell of a workout, I had bruises on my shoulders – they realised how much we cared about the quality of our food, and agreed to deliver it to us anyway.’

THE MENU ‘We use free-range chickens from another farm in Yorkshire, and all our vegetables are sourced from the UK – our potatoes, for example, come from a farm in Kent,’ says Barton. ‘We tend to get a lot of active guys coming to our restaurants because they know that the quality of the food is high. And while I wouldn’t recommend eating it every day, when you do want to indulge we’re the best place to go, because you know that the ingredients are high-quality and the animals have been humanely treated.’

BEST FAT-LOSS OPTION A free-range chicken burger, served with cabbage, carrot and kohlrabi coleslaw.

BEST MUSCLE-BUILDING OPTION The Federation burger – containing two beef patties, smoked bacon and mature cheddar – served with rosemary salted chips and onion rings. honestburgers.co.uk