London,

Byron

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Cuisine: British
A meal for two about £50 with wine and service

4 Jerome Place, Kingston-Upon-Thames, KT1 1HX

Nearest Tube: Kingston Rail Station

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Phone: 020 8541 4757

Open: Open Mon-Fri noon-11pm, Sat 11am-11pm, Sun 11am-10.30pm

 

 

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Byron is well versed in burgers

 

Poetry in motion: waitress Lisa Cox at Byron

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There is much excitement in Kingston-Upon-thames, where I live, at the impending arrival of Jamie oliver with one of his new italian cafés. Around the dinner tables it's seen as vindication of a borough that many of us locals love but few outsiders, thanks to the one-way system, rarely give a second glance. Which is a pity. For if they did, they would find a medieval (still working) marketplace, shops to rival the West End, including not one but two department stores, terrific schools, a new, stunning theatre (I declare an interest, I'm a trustee) and mile after mile of glorious river frontage and parks.

I've lived there since 1986 and have seen changes galore - not all of them positive. But one triumph is charter Quay, the area between the market and the thames. It's got bars, a good French restaurant, Frère Jacques, and branches of carluccio's, strada, Wagamama and now, Byron. Specialising in burgers, the first Byron opened in Kensington High street. The Kingston branch, which opened last month, is the second. It's the burger offering from Gondola Holdings, owner of Pizza Express - and we've got two of those as well. Reckoning that burgers can't be that expensive, we went with the two toddlers (three and one) and a bigger child (16) last sunday afternoon. Charter Quay was teeming with people basking in the sun. At Byron, as with most of the restaurants, the outside tables were taken but inside was quiet. It's a colossal gamble, despite the prime location, opening such a place. There's already a Gourmet Burger Kitchen not far away and you wonder if there's only so much highclass burger a town can take.

And make no mistake, Byron is aiming high. From the moment you walk in you get the message that these are "proper hamburgers" and they're "ground daily from select cuts of rump, chuck and brisket". The beef comes from "fully traceable, grass-fed Aberdeen Angus herds, sourced exclusively from scotland and aged for 21 days". Even the buns are no ordinary pieces of bread but are "baked daily by a fourth-generation family baker in the East End".

You want to scream, it's a burger for God's sake! And that's the point, because that is all it is. For £5.75, i had a classic 6oz burger but my fries were £2.75 extra as were the (shared) onion rings. suddenly, i was being charged £11.25 - which is a lot more than £5.75. there was no faulting the burger. Previously, however, it would have been a thing of beauty and rarity but we've now got rather used to the upmarket burger. Was it any better than GBK and the rest? No, but it's not worse either. The bread, as promised, was good and fresh. The onion rings were not too heavily battered, although they still seemed greasy, as were my wife's fried courgettes. She went for the "skinny burger", minus bread but with a side salad, which refreshingly, instead of using copious amounts of shredded iceberg had watercress as its principle ingredient. The 16-year-old's chicken burger was a solid piece of meat but at £8.25 it still came minus fries. Our coleslaw, also shared, was homemade but, oddly, tasted salty (we all commented on how thirsty we were when we got home). Desserts were a passable cheesecake with fruit coulis (£4.50) and chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream (£4.50), which were perfectly soft and chewy.

Byron, for reasons which are beyond me, feels the need to classify its wine as if addressing a simpleton, so they are "good" (it's hardly likely to say "poor" now is it?), "better", "great" and "best". I went for the latter - two glasses of 2005 step road Langhorne creek shiraz from south Australia. It was bursting with fruit (Robert Parker, the wine guru, gives it 92 out of 100) and at £7.40 for a 250ml glass was good value but was almost too smart an accompaniment for burger and fries.

Where Byron does score heavily is on the clean, simple decor of shining white tiles and the occasional friendly plastic cow, and its children's menu - for £5.75 they got two dinky beefburgers in a bun or chicken, fries, ice cream with chocolate sauce and a babycino each. the total, with coffees and a coke, came to £75.70, and that was minus service. It's the extras that do it, of course. More than £80 seemed a lot for what it was - well put-together, but burgers nonetheless.

Byron is high on quality and on price but it faces tough competition from Frère Jacques, carluccio's and the rest. And that's without the advent of the blessed Jamie.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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