Bun Fighting at Byron's Hamburgers

It was actually the 12th August when we went

I've commented before that I think that McDonald's do the best burger buns. Sorry, but I think it's true. The slight sweetness of the pappy bun, coupled with the sesame seeds is a tasty vehicle to deliver the patties of meat to my mouth without falling apart ashamedly in my hands. Happily, I am not alone in these feelings. Helen of Food Stories shares my view and it spurred her on to come up with the idea of putting a 'gourmet' burger patty in a fast food bun. She expressed this idea on Twitter, and Tom Byng of Byron Hamburgers stepped up to the plate to accomodate the experiment.

Not only did accomodate he the experiment, he went a little further and upped the game. Marcus Miller bakes all of Byron's buns, and they came up with eight different buns for us to test. Eight! When we were presented with the agenda, we were overwhelmed.

Of course, to get a fair playing field, Helen sourced some Burger King buns. Sadly, McDonald's flat out refused to give her any buns so they were not included in the experiment. Our very, very scientific methods involved a plain tasting of the bun, then a quarter of an assembled burger each. As there were five of us, another assembled burger was made up so that we could try the burger as a whole. Hand-feel and how well the bun conveys the patty is also a very important part of a burger, after all.

As there were 9 buns to test, I won't go through them all as I imagine that would be rather boring. Instead, my top three -

1. The Brioche Bun. It was amazing. Yes, the puffed dome was soon deflated once you got your fingers around it, but the sweet buttery bread complimented the patty perfectly. I made obscene comments about this.

2. The Burger King Bun. Sadly so. It held it's puffed shape well, it made for an extremely attractive burger. It had the sweetness of the brioche, but it did taste a little dry and synthetic. And it made me feel dirty.

3. The Byron Bun. It was slightly sweet, had a nice doughy texture and stood up to the burger patty well. It had no overwhelming flavours to detract from the meat and it did it's job nicely.

Other options included wholemeal (wrong, wrong, wrong), sourdough, sourdough with onion (which was rather too much of a lingering sour flavour) and sesame seed which almost pipped the Byron bun to the post.

And the worst?

The Ciabatta. It was horrid. I ate the meat and pushed the bun away. I don't think there's ever any need for a ciabatta burger bun. It was floury, stodgy and the slightly crispy crust upset me. It wasn't like other ciabattas I've seen with a more open crumb, but it was close enough. And if that wasn't bad enough, we turned it over to find bottom soaked through and falling apart. It was an insult to the beautifully seasoned and cooked beef.

So there we were, fit to bursting. How better to finish off the meal than with a Knickerbocker Glory?

Thanks to Byron Hamburgers for indulging us with this experiment. We had wondered if we'd have to do it on the sly and risk embarrassment and being chucked out. They themselves stood up to the test well; of the 18 burgers we sampled, all but one (which more like medium well) was cooked to a juicy pink and were all well seasoned. If that's not a true test of consistency, I don't know what is.

So there you have it. Others round the table rated the Burger King bun as tops, saying that it held it's structure better than the brioche. Now, if only we could make a more sturdy brioche...

Stay tuned for the Big Brioche Burger Bun Battle. Try saying that after a few...

Byron Hamburgers

300 King's Road
London
SW3 5UH

Tel: 020 7352 6040

Other locations: see website for details