Grace Dent reviews Five Guys and Shake Shack

Grace Dent is bewitched by the dastardly burger wizards at Five Guys and Shake Shack
Grace Dent19 July 2013

Having lost my virginity several years ago, I’ve never been the sort who would queue in the street for a beefburger. Would, I ask myself, Joan Collins stand in thick traffic fumes, surrounded by men dressed entirely from their dirty washing baskets, in a bid to secure a splodge of meat slung in a bread roll? No, indeed she would not. Would Stephanie Beacham linger three hours for fast food, with a blogger’s digital single-lens reflex camera jabbing in her back like an unwanted erection, in a bid to get behind the velvet rope in a glorified Wimpy? No. With this in mind ES Magazine dispatched me to Covent Garden to try the new hype-laden US import burger joints Five Guys and Shake Shack, currently being discussed fervently by a lot of people who should perhaps take up a nourishing pastime such as macramé.

I tried all my standard tantrums, but still somehow found myself outside Five Guys at 10pm on a Saturday humouring a pep talk from an employee in a red baseball cap about placing my order. Five Guys lies on that corner in Long Acre that used to be Bar 38. For the unfamiliar, Bar 38 was a cavernous cocktail-dispensing hell’s mouth. It was somewhere people with no ideas went to hear Montell Jordan remixes, vomit, then get the last train out of Fenchurch Street. They’ve cleared it out since then, but not exactly spruced it up.

Five Guys is supposed to look like a time-worn, no-frills American burger joint. It’s the sort of place Bruce Springsteen pops into in Baltimore in ‘Hungry Heart’, after going out for a ride and never going back. Sacks of peanuts are stacked around the place and there’s a Coca-Cola machine serving 100 different flavours, which boys can play with as their girlfriends quietly think about joining Tinder.com. Five Guys burgers are, I must stress here, wholly, succulently, conversation-stoppingly addictive. The ‘small’ burger is actually challengingly enormous, and arrives sloppy and — if one asks for it ‘all ways’ — oozing with mayo, ketchup, mustard, grilled mushroom, pickle and a nod towards salad.

We ordered one ‘small fries’ and were given a US grocery-size brown paper bag filled halfway up, enough for about four people. I wobbled out of Five Guys mumbling, ‘Never again, too damn deliciously evil.’ Besides, being utterly truthful, looks-wise and service-wise this place is less deluxe than a McDonald’s. It’s worth keeping this in mind as you set off to pay around £30 for two people to eat burger, chips and two beers. I sat on a tall stool, a little too far away from the bench, eating a burger so sloppy the only way to consume it was like a lioness finishing off a dim antelope. Nevertheless, I still woke up dreaming of eating that small bacon cheeseburger again for breakfast.

If I were pressed to choose a favourite US burger joint right now, I’d opt for Shake Shack. It’s deep in the heart of Covent Garden Piazza, so one sits in a delightful penned-off area, listening to a busking string quartet while eating a SmokeShack cheeseburger topped with Niman Ranch all-natural applewood smoked bacon, chopped cherry pepper (I’m endlessly distracted by the memory of this pepper) and ShackSauce (a sort of Marie Rose with garlic and dill and something slightly kick-ish like paprika), with a portion of thick, crinkle-cut, decadently salty fries. It was the best burger I’ve ever eaten. Damn these burger wizards! I went to Shake Shack alone at 11.30am and was served within minutes. Queues at peak hours have been ridiculous. I’ve heard of people ‘making a night of it’ and bringing drinks for a party in the queue. (These people are also allowed to vote and drive cars; no wonder this country is on its bloody knees.) The Shake Shack experience is a more elegant affair than Five Guys’. The burger can be held in two hands and you can have a glass of wine and a ‘frozen custard’ for pudding. But don’t believe the hype, it’s just ice cream by another name. Saying that, if you didn’t go in for hype, you wouldn’t go at all.

Five Guys, 1-3 Long Acre, WC2, fiveguys.co.uk

Shake Shack, Market Building, The Piazza Covent Garden, WC2E 8RD, shakeshack.com

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