London Eats: MEATliquor

 This place can be a real mixed bag, and it's worth keeping in mind you will either love or hate it. 

There's no reservations so you can expect around a thirty minute wait, any evening of the week. If you go for lunch you'll often be seated straight away, but the food is never quite as good. 

MEATliquor has an outdoor queue covered with heaters to keep you warm, but it's unlikely you'll wait more than ten minutes there, they usually move you to the bar area when you have about 20 minutes to go. This means if there's more than two of you, your table will be ready by the time you've got your drinks.

The cocktails are tasty, and the bar staff will make a bit of a show of preparing them, but you're essentially paying around £8 for two mouthfuls of drink and a glass of ice, so I generally stick with bottles of beer/cider which all tend to be around the £4.50 mark. 

To say the atmosphere in MEATliquor is unique is an understatement. The decor looks like it was executed by graffiti enthused pirates, and it's exceptionally loud, a place to avoid if you like intimate conversation or dislike rock music. The majority of tables are large, so if you're a smaller group you can expect to be seated with another party. Be wary if you're seated under the domed section of ceiling too, the design means that your conversation can be heard better by those on the other side of the room than those sat next to you. None of this is a bad thing, it's just worth bearing in mind, since it makes for a rather 'marmite' dining experience. 

Moving on to the main event, the food! This is a strictly eat with your hands sorta destination, all the food is served on giant trays, and you can expect to finish your burger with a good amount of grease and sauce dripping down to your elbows. Each table has a big roll of kitchen roll that comes in handy for mopping it all up, but hardly makes for a silver service experience. 

I can whole heartedly recommend the Dead Hippie Burger, but all of there burgers are delicious, cooked medium rare as standard, and served in brioche buns. I've tried a fair few of the sides (cheese fries, dead hippie fries, chilli cheese fries, onion rings, fried pickles, chicken wings, Mac & cheese) and they were all delicious, but it's worth keeping in mind that the portion size is enormous. Particularly the onion rings, which look like they started life as giant genetically modified onions the size of a boxers fist. 

The service in MEATliquor is stretched thin, you can expect to have to haul in a server for your bill at the end of the meal. They're always lovely, their just stretched thin. 

Other notable things, it's cramped quarters and always rammed, expect to be rubbing shoulders with everyone. There's a photo booth that you can purchase tokens for at the bar, which gets a good rep. 

Overall, it's definitely an experience, the food is good, but it's not something you need to repeat more than once or twice. There are other burger joints in London with better service, food, and an atmosphere better suited to being able to hear yourself breathe.