The Review Classic Burger

Saying you’re going to have the best burger in town is a pretty bold statement to make.

Review bar, located within Preston Guild Hall, is doing this.

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The city has not seen the explosion in burger chain restaurants the likes of Manchester and Liverpool have in the last two years – Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Byron Burger – the Brits have gone burger mad. Fishergate Shopping Centre claims it’ll be bringing some of these chains to the city if the £40m cinema revamp happens.

Preston has Burgers’n’Bibs and The Ferret which are leading the burger revolution but can Review match them?

We were invited along to give it a road test ahead of them serving out to the general public. Not a bad idea from a bar to get people in and get feedback on their food.

Review bar itself appears to be doing well, another of Simon Rigby’s investment in the Guild Hall building. He turfed out the tourist information centre to make way for the cocktail bar and it has begun to build a following during the weekends.

Inside Review bar

It’s struggling a bit during the week and so is bringing in a food menu and manager Natalie tells me they think burgers are the gap in the market in the city.

We’re offered the choice of the Review Classic Burger, Review Chicken Burger and the Review Veggie Burger. Original names they are not. Although they are promising more are to come.

I went for the classic, my wife for the veggie option.

The classic is a double burger, always a bonus. It’s a good size, not too overbearing but also not skimping on the patties either. They’ve got to sort out what it’s served in though.

What? No plate!

The burger, and fries, come in a mini-fryer. Eye-catching yes, practical no. The majority of my burger sauce and cheese slopped its way off because the burger is placed in the fryer on its side.

On a plate. The standard way up. Don’t mess with it.

The meat is nicely cooked and there’s a good taste to the burger. They’ve not overdone it with loads of additional dressings or salad. Focus on the meat to keep the likes of me happy.

The veggie burger is a is a falafel patty with a houmous sauce, chilli salsa and garlic mayo. Unfortunately it’s a rather dry affair, they’d really skimed on the sauce so it’s a heck of a lot of crushed chickpeas to get your way through.

The burger for veggies

Their fries make up for it, skinny chips and really tasty and with good salt levels.

Overall these are good burgers, world beaters? No. This is a road test for Review so fair play they’ll have more to come and time to improve, but to cut it against Burgers’n’Bibs and The Ferret they’ll need to up their game.

And use plates (I will be telling @wewantplates and I’m sure they’ll have a strong word to say).

There’s no sign of the prices yet, and whether they’ll be doing any cocktail or beer and burger deals. Charging more than a tenner for the burger and fries would definitely be a bad move.

Review have told us they are also planning some food challenges, which need to be booked in advance. The Jackson 5 burger and the UB40 chicken wing challenge are listed, but no one has seen them yet. We’ll be sending Luke Beardsworth to destroy them in due course.

Cocktails were good, this is the Earl Grey Ice Tea

Blog Preston was a guest of Review bar, we only paid for our drinks and they knew we were coming. We went along so we could give you an idea of what it’s like. This isn’t a review, it’s a taste test.

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Where is your favourite burger in Preston? Let us know if you try out the Review burgers in the comments below