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Wahlburgers, London WC2: A touchy-feely tourist trap – restaurant review | Grace Dent


We will never reach peak burger. This is terrifically bad news for cows, but a relief for anyone who finds cutlery arduous. Wahlburgers is actor Mark “Marky Mark” Wahlberg’s fast-food emporium, which opened its first UK branch late last month in a perfect London location (with, apparently, plans to open many more sites over the next few years). Simply exit Covent Garden tube, head on to the cobbled thoroughfare – one of the capital’s most congested tourist hotspots – and there’s Wahlburgers, like an open honey jar to curious, famished ants.

I say Wahlburgers is fast food, but the moment one sets foot inside, passing a merchandise stand on the way, there’s a sense this might take time. Shake Shack, another relatively recent US fancy burger import, has greeters who ebulliently welcome diners to join the queue, but at Wahlburgers you’re shown to a table and assigned a waitress with a sense of formality unbefitting a lurid green, unlovingly furnished, part-burger joint, part-sports bar. Assuming the sport in question is “Stalking the Wahlberg family”: screens on every wall play highlights of 10 seasons of Wahlburgers, a reality TV show that follows the high jinks of Mark, Donnie and Paul Wahlberg’s empire. Napkin holders are covered in cute family photos of dinners with Mom, the walls are emblazoned with Mark and Donnie’s movie posters, and the menu is dusted with homespun tributes to Alma’s macaroni “made from scratch”, Jenn’s chicken salad and Mom’s favourite mayo.

The Wahlbergs clearly love each other, and this fact seeps from every surface in an unabashed, touchy-feely, American way that sits curiously with us in Blighty, where it’s only really necessary to emote at family members if someone gets cancer, though even then a firm, stoic handshake should suffice.

Marky meh: the blue cheese burger. Wahlburgers Restaurant, Covent Garden, London



Marky meh: Wahlburgers’ blue cheese burger.

Still, my first read-though of the Wahlburgers menu made me very, very excited, because it is a laminated bombardment of calorie-drenched potential deliciousness. The “Fiesta Burger” with fresh jalapeños, the “Impossible” veggie burger with chilli-spiced tomatoes, hot sloppy joe sandwiches, house-made chilli with chipotle peppers, cobb salad, tater tots, Thanksgiving turkey burgers with stuffing, items encrusted in panko breadcrumbs and boozy milkshakes with frosted icing. Loosen those waistbands! Schedule tomorrow for living meagrely on rice cakes! For now, my friends, we dine.

Hang on, the cheapest burger is £9.50, rising quickly to £11-£14 for something a little grander. And a side of smoked bacon mac’n’cheese is £8 how? Staring into the busy open kitchen at the back of the lower floor, you see a team of busy, uniformed workers, much like in any McDonald’s. No one could doubt their focus. So what begins to head in the direction of our table is puzzling. First a cardboard carton half filled with burned sweet potato fries, then a bowl of what appears to be undressed, cheap penne that, on closer inspection, are sitting in a puddle of thin cheese soup. A single black plastic fork stands upright in the middle of it.

A side of mac ‘n’ cheese at Wahlburgers in central London.



Massive Mark-up: an £8 side of smoked bacon mac’n’cheese at Wahlburgers. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

“Can we have another fork?” I ask, and it instantly feels like one of those impossibly difficult requests. Service is worse than untrained; it’s that sort of trained where they’ve been drilled in answering seven questions only, and anything off-script or requiring empathy or gumption is best avoided. Kate orders the basic “Our Burger” – made with a third of a pound of mixed cuts of Scottish beef, lettuce, tomato, onion, American cheese, pickle and Paul’s signature sauce (best not ask). The sauce, I think, is the best part. My Impossible burger is delicious with caramelised onions and sweet tomatoes masking a fake meat patty to the point that it could actually be beef. Kate leaves half her genuine moo option: “It’s OK, but it’s just not the standard of patty you’d expect for this price.”

The birthday cake frappe. Wahlburgers Restaurant, Covent Garden, London



Donnie bother: Wahlburgers’ birthday cake frappé.

Here, let’s order a Birthday Cake frappé! “Vanilla ice-cream, vanilla vodka, crème de cocoa, vanilla frosting, whipped cream, rainbow sprinkles.” In my mind’s eye, this will be like your birthday knickerbocker glory at Wimpy in 1981: enormous, multi-layered, gooey, fluffy and joyful. It arrives, and it’s a long, straight pint glass filled with what looks like vanilla Complan with a few hundreds and thousands on the rim of the glass. It’s thicker than porridge and will not suck up the straw.

“Are you enjoying it?” the waitress asks. “No, it’s literally inedible,” I reply. “Can we maybe have a spoon?” “That’s good,” she says.

I have been in the deepest of umbrages with Wahlburgers since my visit. Apparently Mark rises at 2.30am every morning. In that case, good, I’m making progress: he’s definitely feeling those voodoo pins.

Wahlburgers 8-9 James Street, London WC2, 020-3968 4446. Open all week, 11am-11pm (10.30pm Sun). About £20-25 a head, plus drinks and service.

Food 2/10
Atmosphere 3/10
Service 3/10



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