The Thirsty Bear – 62 Stamford Street, Blackfriars, London SE1 9LX

The Thirsty Bear: 62 Stamford Street, Blackfriars, London SE1 9LX
Contact: 0207 928 5354 www.thethirstybear.com
Price: £12.95 for a standard build your own burger

Food: ★★★★★
Service: ★★★★★
Style: ★★★★★

The craze for gourmet burgers is still all the rage and The Thirsty Bear has been the subject of much hype. I went on a busy Thursday evening with work colleagues for a team night out. Lured by toppings such as pulled pork and beef chilli, we went like moths to a flame.

The bar on the ground floor leads to another bar on the top floor with additional tables for food. The place was packed with blue shirt brigade office workers for after work drinks and food as well as other groups. The atmosphere was lively to match the British darts and American rodeo (!) coverage on TV screens around the room.

Gourmet burgers aren’t the only gimmicks at The Thirsty Bear. Our drinks and food orders were made via an android tablet fixed to the table and beer was also on tap at the table – all fancy stuff to keep the boys entertained! The amount of beer dispensed was tracked on the tablet. There were no physical menus, everything was on the tablet so we had to take turns on the screen to choose. This became an issue when half the table ordered and the app timed out so the orders were lost. We therefore had to start again, much to our annoyance.

Build your own burger

Most of us built our own burgers from the wide variety of extra toppings. I went for a bunless beef burger with goats cheese, lettuce, roasted peppers, cooked onions, chilli beef, guacamole and skinny fries. The burger was not stacked due to the lack of bun so it looked a bit lack lustre on the wooden board (another gimmick). The beef patty itself had a smokey barbecue flavour, reminiscent of summer barbecues cooked by my Dad in the back garden at home. The rest of the burger was pretty disappointing. The chilli beef topping was cold and not spicy enough, the fries were droopy and soggy but the goats cheese was good.

Bad Ass Burger

I nicked a chunky chip from my colleague because it looked more appetising than the skinny fries. However, as in life, looks were deceiving. The variety of potato used was too floury so it kind of disintegrated in my mouth – not a good feeling! Two of our party opted for non beef burgers, instead having chicken and veggie burgers. Both said the ‘burger’ was the least appetising part of the meal since the toppings were more flavoursome. The guys who had ‘Bad Ass’ burgers aka heart attack on a board, enjoyed them but couldn’t finish them.

As usual I saved a bit of space for dessert so imagine my horror when I discovered there were no desserts on the menu! Furthermore, there were no hot drinks either! How is this even possible! Not to be outdone, I consoled myself with a pralines and cream ice cream from Waitrose on the way home – tragic!

So, if you fancy a burger… And I mean just a burger… Head to the Thirsty Bear but don’t expect a three course meal. This is a pub with grub and grub evidently doesn’t mean dessert or coffee.