The Burger Reviewer

Stef • May 2, 2020

In this time of global pandemics and mandated social distancing, food delivery is more than ever a double-edged sword. On one side, it can be the highlight of a long and claustrophobic day at home. On the other, especially when it comes to trying something new, it can be a risk. Beste Freunde proves to be one not worth taking.

Let’s skip the order and delivery part and fast-forward to the moment we unwrapped our burgers. It literally took two seconds to spot the intruder: popping out of a deceivingly good-looking, multi-seed-covered bun, the patty revealed itself in its inglorious rigidity and laser-cut edges, the sad trademarks of frozenness. Bad start. What pushes a delivery-only kitchen, with a minimal and straightforward menu and literally nothing else to focus on other than the food itself, to opt for frozen patties? You might ask “what’s so terrible about frozen patties?”. Well about everything, really. There’s an undeniable abyss between a juicy, textured, freshly-ground mix of beef and a chewy, compact, IKEA-meatball-like disk of meat. As it’s often the case, it wasn’t all terrible - the sauces were good, the bread did its job. But yet again, if you make the choice to use frozen meat, you need to know how to deal with it. And opting for braised onions, which add squishy to the already chewy texture, is probably the worse thing you can do.

Beste Freunde is not a burger restaurant, it merely mimics one. And it’s not because it’s just one of the many faceless menus of a delivery-only, multi-purpose kitchen business. It’s because, while slavishly following a few basic rules to craft its offering, it lacks all of the imagination and driving passion that burgers deserve.