Smashed, juicy and savoury – another great new creation at Honest Burger

As recognised favourite of the Brighton and Hove Independent, Honest Burger is still on the up and now has 46 restaurants, after humble beginnings at a Brighton food fair.

In addition to the regular draw of superb burgers, sourced from their own butcher’s, and the best chips in town since the sad demise of Be Fries in West Street (another Indy favourite which deserved to go global), Honest Burgers also offers a monthly special, which in the past couple of years or so has featured some pretty nifty creations, making the most of lesser-known burger bed-fellows including Merguez, Kimchi and Teriyaki.

This month’s new burger isn’t quite such a globe-trotter and instead uses slightly more familiar ingredients in a Golden-State inspired treat.

The California Burger also deviates from the usual Honest Burger formula (fat incredibly juicy meat patties, in the style of the sort of burger you’d chow down on at a Farmers’ Market) and instead it has two smashed patties.

But those patties are smashed with American mustard for a seriously savoury hit, and brown butter is blended into the burger sauce.

The rest of the big burger is as American as they come with American cheese, bacon, tomato, lettuce, grilled onions, tasty pickles.

I enjoyed one of the California burgers with a younger burger disciple who was making his first visit to Honest Burger.

Predictably he loved every crispy rosemary salted chippy, every bite of their huge fennel-seed bejewelled onion rings and effortlessly got his nine-year old chops around the hefty burger.

It is another great burger in their production line of burgers, the uber-umami mustard-seared patties and perfectly fried bacon were balanced with sweet pickles and sauce and a big old slice of juicy fresh tomato.

Unfortunately, that’s quite a lot to contain and the young disciple’s bun fell to pieces like my resolve to diet on a cold dark winter’s day.

It may have been the folly of youth (I was just about able to keep things in hand) but he ended up finishing the burger with a knife and fork, which obviously is be avoided unless you’re a minor Royal or like to say serviette instead of napkin.

The California Burger is available until April 3 and is priced at £14.50 and comes with homemade chips for dine-ins and collection or £15.50 with a side when ordered via Uber Eats.

For more information on Honest Burgers visit www.honestburgers.co.uk