Gourmet Burger Kitchen, St Pauls, London

So with some of our colleagues skiing in the Alps this week, a bunch of us decided to go out and have dinner before a game of bowling - Oh help! Wanting somewhere near work, we decided on the Gourmet Burger Kitchen at St Paul's. It's only a five minute walk and has a lovely view (from the front of the restaurant) of the cathedral.

We actually got put in the back of the restaurant as there were 12 of us and I suppose they wanted the front of the restaurant free. It's standard decor-wise, big blackboards with the toppings on, tomato-shaped tomato sauce bottles, knives and forks given out when you arrive. You also have to order your burger at the counter which is where the problems started as we were doing tastelondon and it meant that we had six people on each card and we all had to pay together. Not great when you haven't got change!

The waitress wasn't that nice about it and didn't offer to help. We also had to pay twice: once for our food with 50% off and again for our full-price drinks. She seemed very annoyed, tried to make things more unhelpful and I really don't know why they couldn't have given us a bill at the end of our meal. Fair enough it's not how they do things but for a 12-person table on special offer dining, it would have been a lot more helpful.

So what did we have?


There was a smattering of different choices: Some Thai chicken, satay chicken, classic chicken. Of the beef variety, we had a pesterella (my choice) with added sweet potato, a couple of habaneros and a classic cheese. A nice choice. We also got more than enough chips for everybody and it was ruddy lovely. The burgers tasted lovely and had more than enough flavour: one criticism is that mine was rather sloppy with the pesto mayo and the slippery mozzarella and I could barely pick it up without something falling out of it! I couldn't really taste the burger and I came to the conclusion that actually, less is more when it comes to a nice burger (see my Byron review as an example!)

So did we enjoy it? Everyone seems to have enjoyed their burgers and the service of one waiter made us all smile; he was lovely and made me stop glaring at the original waitress (her with the rude attitude!). The food was quite average and I think if I go again, I'll just have a classic burger.

Damage: About £10/person with tastelondon offer.

Vitals

Gourmet Burger Kitchen - St Paul's
Unit 4, Condor House, St Pauls, Church Yard, London, EC4M8AL
Tel: 0207 248 9199
Website: http://www.gbk.co.uk/

Nearest tube: St Paul's