REVIEW | Gordo On Burger & Lobster

BURGER and Lobster (B&L) - recently opened on Manchester's Brown Street - is part of a relatively small, well-managed chain owned by Russian Misha Zelman, who has twelve highly-regarded steakhouses in Russia, along with three in London. The B&L idea started in 2011 and is nearly as minimalist as the failed steak concept, L’Entrecote, around the corner on King Street, but not quite.

Gordo adored this one so much he’s sworn to himself that he'll have at least one every week for the rest of his filthy days

There are three things on the menu: 1lb 8oz lobsters (poached then grilled or simply poached), a lobster roll and a 10oz burger. Oh, a couple of puddings as well. They are all one price. Twenty quid. Apart from the puddings, that is, they're £4.50. Blimey. No starters, mind. 

You get a choice of sauces with the mains; the plain melted butter is the best choice for lobster in Gordo’s opinion, unless you fancy a highly-designed sauce such as Thermidor (you can’t get that here) which is a right bugger to make properly; simplicity is the thing here. The garlic sauce is a bit nasty, but Moore liked that. There's also an excellent green salad, well dressed with a good grating of cheese on top and a big bag full of very good fries. 

B&L also, as a nod to the Manchester dirty food scene, had a lobster mac'n'cheese on. Apparently, the English gaffer tried it once and told them to bin it. Gordo likes him already. What a bloody waste of five years battling crabs and codfish that dish is.

Burger & Lobster, King Street

Interior

The lobsters are flown in from Nova Scotia. There's a load of PR bollocks on the front page of a very messy web site telling us how Alex, their ‘friend’, liases with the lobster fishermen and drinks craft beer with them every dark and stormy night in the inn whilst eyeing-up the Innkeepers eighteen-year-old daughter wearing a very tight, chunky knitted sweater struggling to hide her perfect large breasts with strawberry blond hair cascading down… 

Yeah, well, you get what Gordo means.

These guys are moving hair-raising numbers of the bad tempered blighters. There are plenty about at the moment, partly because cod stocks, another bad tempered fish, have collapsed. They used to love a good lobster themselves. In 1975 around 16,000 tonnes were landed from the Grand Banks; in 2012 it was 74,790 tonnes.

Which means that Mr Zelman isn’t as daft as he seems. Also, the optimum lobster size for fine dining, according to Michel Guérard, the three star Michelin chef at Les Pres d’Eugenie in South West France, is 1lb 2oz. They tend to toughen up over that size and loose a little sweetness. Which overall is a good thing for B&L’s buying position.

One industry insider told Gordo that with a smart buying policy on the other side of the pond (with forward ordering and cutting out wholesalers) the group may well be landing their babies at around £5 here in the UK. It’s commendable that the group passes on their savings to the diners, they could easily charge £30 for these.

Green salad

Lobster roll

Now, what’s the product on the table like? Bloody good as it happens. Gordo tried everything. Yes, he knows, it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it. The lobster was perhaps overcooked by a minute or two but full of flavour and expertly prepared so the punter needn’t be concerned about extraction. Get a bib and get messy. Tartare sauce would be nice; Gordo thinks they would make a good fist of it. 

So what of this lobster roll thing? Well, If you can imagine a really good farmhouse tin loaf, cut into fat two inch slices, brushed liberally with butter on the outside, then grilled, hot. They come out tanned and crisp, exactly like a perfect Croque Monsieur. Slit three quarters down then packed, and the Fat One means packed, with a fat, meaty lobster mayonnaise. Gordo adored this one so much he’s sworn to himself that he'll scoff at least one every week for the rest of his filthy days.

Finally, onto the burger. Clearly, there is a need to buy from the other side of the Atlantic with the lobster. Natives would bust the budget. But clearly Mr Zelman isn’t into the local grown idea, as the beef is USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), which is a bit uniform and boring for Gordo. 

Fattened and finished with six weeks on corn makes for good yellow marbling. Though when asked why B&L don't use British, the website reads: “Flavour. Corn-fed Nebraskan premium steak has the best flavour… and that’s exactly what we grind daily to put in our burgers."

Take it from a master butcher, Mr Zelman, this is utter bollocks. They have to finish the moos on corn to fatten up because the grass is pants across most of the USA. 

Now, this 10oz sucker is £20. Yes, £20. Gordo was ready to give this a right good kicking. This price is not sensible. However, it’s a very good burger, cooked and built handsomely it stands up to the likes of Solita and Hawksmoor, the other two burger heavyweights in the city. It's certainly a much better bun than Solita. But, it is £8.00 more. Is it worth it? Put it this way, Gordo won’t be climbing over one of those lobster rolls to get to one of these.

The burger

The lobster

There are two puddings (£4.50), both appear as afterthoughts for the kids (and Gordo). Served in plastic tubs, there is a somewhat liquid strawberry cheesecake and another; a bland Eton mess. Both teeth-piercingly sweet. They need to do better here.

The wine list is short but useful, the L’Hospitalet Pinot Noir from one of the spruced up growers in this underrated French region is £6.50 for a large glass. You can pick-up a bottle elsewhere for just under a tenner, well worth it folks if you're fond of a Pinot Noir. B&L's three times markup is very acceptable in a restaurant. 

The room itself is a great fit-out, sexy, deep, dark wood and red leather. Service could be a bit too overworked if it wasn’t for the fact that Tom, the guy looking after us, pulled it off with a sprinkling of lemon to cut through the grease and a smile delivered with a lack of pretention that was admirable. Service was fast and well orchestrated by all concerned.

The liquid cheesecake

This is a big unit, mind you. Well over two hundred covers and currently dead. They seem to be suffering from London-itus, as did the aforementioned L’Entrecote, who offered sirloin steak, a terrific crack-cocaine green garlic sauce and unlimited (and really excellent) fries at £17.50. It failed.

L’Entrecote was known to Gordo from his time in Paris, there his local had a constant queue outside. He was baffled when it failed in Manchester only fifty metres down and in a much better spot on King Street than B&L. 

Last Monday night, the Fat One was in London and nipped to the B&L over the road from his hotel on Dean Street in Soho. He'd been told that B&L in London had similar success to that of L’Entrecote in Paris. It was five thirty, there was a bouncer on the door and twenty people in the queue. He was gobsmacked. He nipped in ‘looking for a pal’ and was hugely impressed. It was indeed filled to the rafters. 

But it was filled to the rafters with tourists, particularly those from the Far-East, lovers of crustacea; by the gods they were tucking in. Not many burgers on show to be fair.

And thinking on, if you were to ask the Fat One why L’Entrecote failed, he would now say that they were on the back foot from the off; Manchester’s tourism, whilst coming along handsomely, is like a pin prick on an elephants arse compared to London.

Mancunia also knows the alternatives well. Stephen Miles’ Steak and Lobster brand in the Radisson Edwardian, for example, offers a very credible alternative with whole lobsters and 10oz British dry-aged rib steaks at £18.

Will Burger and Lobster get there? Gordo hopes so. It may be that the brand, like L’Entrecote, needs to stick to capital cities. It’s going to be a long haul filling that lovely but cavernous space.

You can follow Gordo on twitter @GordoManchester

Burger & Lobster, Ship Canal House, 98 King St, Manchester M2 4WU. 0161 832 0222

Rating: 15.75/20

Food: 7.25/10 (Lobster poached 8, poached and grilled 7.5, Burger 8, Lobster Roll 10, Eton mess 5, Cheesecake 5)

Ambience: 4/5 (when it’s busy, 3 if not)

Service: 4.5/5

Burger porn

 

Eton mess

The damage