Another London Burger Brand Evolves from Van to Permanent Restaurant

One of Londons’s best burgers, Burger and Beyond, will evolve from street food outfit to permanent restaurant when it opens a first site — at 147 Shoreditch High Street — this November. The brand, founded by Craig Povoas and Tom Stock, will offer an extended menu of sides and small plates alongside the burgers. It replaces the Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Viet 68, opposite Ace Hotel.

Following residencies at street food collectives KERB, Street Feast, and Camden Assembly over the past three and half years, the brand’s first restaurant will offer “drinking snacks,” and an expanded list of small plates and sides alongside its burgers and sides list. It will, the owners say, “show the team’s creative side.”

Here’s what to expect:

Drinking snacks will include chicken skin and bread with bone marrow butter.

Small plates: Shaved rib cap with anchovy butter; deep-fried lamb nuggets with burnt onion dip; and mushrooms, cured egg yolk, and lardo on toast.

New additions to the burger list include: Fried hot fish (crispy line-caught cod, Nashville hot sauce, herb mayo, slaw, and pickles); Krispie fried chicken (Rice Krispie cereal-fried chicken, miso maple butter, and ranch pickle slaw); and mushroom Raclette (panko-crusted mushroom patty, melted raclette (Swiss cheese), caramelised onion, lambs lettuce, and smoked garlic mayo).

Run for the Hills

Sides will include a hefty take on poutine: Fries, bone marrow gravy and cheese; and truffle tots. A small desserts list will include a deep-fried blueberry pie with clotted ice cream.

In a joint statement, Povoas and Stock said: “We are thrilled to be opening our first restaurant in Shoreditch, the location is perfect and the design brings our vision to life. The restaurant will showcase a different side to Burger & Beyond whilst staying true to the foundations of our brand, something that is not always possible within the constraints of the street food market.”

Other London-born burger brands which have graduated from the street food circuit to permanent restaurant include a number of the city’s most celebrated traders — Meatliquor, Bleecker Burger, and Patty & Bun, all of which now have multiple sites, began life either as a van or a stall. The market apparently knows no bounds, as American chain imports — such as Shake Shack and Five Guys — continue to grow alongside Britain’s own chains, like Honest Burgers.