It’s a tricky time of year for daters in fledgling relationships; Valentine’s Day is just two weeks away which means that unless you’re halfway down the aisle, or at least attached in the eyes of Facebook and friends, you’ll want to find a reason to be out of town on the 
14th. So you’d better make the first half of February count.
RIGHT YOU ARE. WHERE SHOULD I TAKE MY DATE?
To a burger joint! There’s no denying it, the burger is king. And you don’t have to frequent an actual Burger King or even the slightly more upmarket GBK (that’s Gourmet Burger Kitchen) to find one these days.
REALLY? BURGERS ON A DATE?
Yes really. Haven’t you noticed? Burgers are no longer sorry excuses for reconstituted beef hiding in stale sesame seed buns. The smell of McDonald’s French fries might still be redolent of your night bus journeys home, but if you know where to look (Soho is a good place to start) you can find some very date-worthy burger joints in London.
OKAY, YOU’VE CONVINCED ME. WHICH ONE?
Top of the list is Honest Burger. Set up by a man called Tom, Honest Burger offers a pared down but highly delicious menu and everything is served with rosemary-salt-sprinkled fries in white and blue Falcon Enamelware. Nice. You’ll find restaurants in Soho, Camden, Kings Cross, Portobello Road and Brixton (the latter is in dater’s paradise Brixton Village, and if you wonder around the market you’ll find a shop selling the same enamel dishware for next to nothing). Alternatively, there’s MEATmarket in Covent Garden or Patty & Bun on James Street, W1U. Beware though, all of these burger joints places have a no reservations policy so make sure you find a bar or pub in the near vicinity in case you need somewhere to wait.
HOW SHOULD I ORDER MY BURGER?
The way you order your food says a lot about you. Too picky and you’ll forever more be THAT guy/girl who claimed to be allergic to parsley (see Carrie from Sex and the City when she was dating Burger – the man, not the subject of this post). But stick with medium rare and you’ll be fine. Order it well done and you will prove yourself a rank amateur and order it as bleu as bleu can be and you’ll come across as a bloodthirsty carnivore.
AND HOW SHOULD I EAT IT?
With your hands. Seriously, ignore any nearby cutlery. Burgers are meat-in-a-bun. The bun is mostly there to make the meat portable and ideally to absorb the juices produced by its contents. The use of cutlery is therefore wrong with one exception: cut the burger in half before eating it. Don’t worry about looking like you have the table manners of the beast from Beauty and the Beast. Your date will be doing just the same and besides, everyone liked the beast better than the pampered prince anyway.
MAXIMUM BLUFFING VALUE
The original meat patty was a German sausage named after the city of Hamburg. As it happens, what we now know as the hamburger – as in a small patty of minced beef – existed before the Germans claimed to have invented it: there are ancient Italian and Russian versions to name but two. However, when German sailors emigrated to America taking their small beefy cakes with them, the ‘Hamburger’ name stuck.
DO SAY ‘It’s good… It’s not quite a Philly burger. But it’s good.’ (It doesn’t matter if you have no idea what a Philly burger might taste like.)
DON’T SAY ‘I hate people watching me eat.’
