We wish you a merry Cheesemas, and a cheesy New Year. This is pretty much the tune on Byron's carol sheets this Christmas as they have marked the festive season with that most Christmassy of specials - a, erm, bacon double cheeseburger.
But to be fair, this is a pretty souped up bacon double cheeseburger, with honey and mustard sauce, freddar (whatever that is), chipotle mayo, pickle and various other garnishes that I really can't be bothered to list. Kudos to Byron, too, for doing something different - pretty much every competitor's special involves cranberry sauce and trimmings you'd usually find on the dinner plate on the 25th December, and let's face it, most people would usually be uneasy about having sprouts on their burger at all other times of year!
Nevertheless, a discussion about burgers with a colleague a couple of weeks back has seen us trekking to Byron to share a Cheesemas. To be fair I could probably eat one on my own (just) but with the diet I am reluctant to consume that many calories in one go and with my companion suggesting she would happily devour half of one I consented (so long as a trip to the pub afterwards was included of course).
I'm not going to review Byron as a restaurant right now, I suspect I'll be there again soon as it's nice and convenient so I'll do it then and concentrate on the burger for this one. We ordered the titular Father Cheesemas and a portion of hand cut chips and eagerly anticipated the arrival of the burger.
When it came, it looked strangely small and lonely on its plate - it clearly wasn't small, but the size of the plate did it no favours. I cut it in half so it could be easily shared.
It was nice and pink in the middle and as you could see the innards perfectly, looked pretty damn appetising. It's not as tall as you'd think either and quite easily fit inside my mouth. My first impressions were that it was a nice burger, the freddar is like cheese squared and had a wonderful oozy texture (although there wasn't enough of it) and the meat was nice and tender although somewhat underseasoned. The bacon added a nice crunch to the affair although I actually prefer my bacon to be meaty rather than crispy, and the pickled gherkin gave little flashes of sweet and sour juiciness. I had one main problem and that was the sauce. A few weeks ago I had a Lucky Chip burger and found the sauce to be overwhelmingly salty, well this was the opposite - it was very, very sweet. I could taste the mustard in it but it didn't offer much bite or counter the honey. The chipotle element of the other sauce used was completely obliterated by the sweetness and I could hardly taste it. I happily finished it, but Byron have better, more balanced burgers in their range.
So overall I liked it, but it suffered from an abundance of one element and a lack of seasoning in the patty. It could have been great, instead it's just nice.
Byron Father Cheesemas: 7.25
The Details:
Byron Burger
Various locations areound London
https://www.byronhamburgers.com/
Burger Reviewed: Father Cheesemas, £12.95
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