Byron Hamburger: #BurgerThursdays in Oxford

On Thursday I met up with Steph (she writes the brilliant Lay It Bare blog) in Oxford after work. We had organised to go for dinner at Byron as we are both fans of brilliant burgers! And having only moved to the area a couple of months ago, I was keen to go there because there are still so many places I need to try... I'd never had a Byron burger before.

After we met up (and popped into H&M) we walked to the restaurant (or rather, Steph led me there as I'm still fairly clueless about navigation in Oxford) and were shown a table right away; it was a booth, which is always my first choice when there is one available. Talking of which, here is a photo that Steph took of me chilling out in the restaurant:

We took a fair few minutes to decide what to eat as everything sounded so yummy. In the end I chose a chilli burger with fries, and Steph had the Byron burger with fries. In all honesty I could've sunk my teeth into any of the burgers on the menu, but the Miami Slice might have been a challenge too far! I think I'd have to be very hungry to polish that one off. Here's the menu so you can see what I mean:

Anyway, let's move onto the food. It was good. Very, very good. I've heard mixed reviews about Byron, but I thought I should test the burgers for myself to truly make up my mind. Even though I've been to prolific restaurants such as Lust, Luck, Liquor and Burn, and many other American eateries, I confess that I was impressed by the food and the service in Byron.

The waiter was friendly and asked how we would like our burgers cooked - I asked for medium well and that is exactly how it was served. The chef even added a little 'medium well' flag which showed to me that my request as a diner was actually being taken into consideration; it drives me mad when I order something in a restaurant and get served something wildly different.

The elements of the burger really came together to create something pretty special. The gooey melted cheese worked wonderfully with the chipotle mayonnaise, and the green chillies added a hot and welcoming crunch. I'm a big fan of varying textures when I eat a meal, so it is not a great surprise that I had no issues polishing this burger off before taking on the fries.

In terms of sides, fries have to be ordered separately from the burger, which was probably the one drawback of the meal. However they were nicely seasoned and had a satisfying crispiness to them; soggy or undercooked fries are not for me!

Despite the extra charge for fries, we both spent less than £15 each (including a drink) which is decent for a burger fix. I'd love to go back and try another burger on the list, which is why I've signed up for the Byron Burger Club - hopefully there will be some exciting events happening in the Oxford branch.

I'm also keen to try other restaurants in Oxford (especially ones that sell burgers) so we are going to aim to try somewhere new each month. So make sure you head back here for my new #BurgerThursdays series, of which this is the first.