Honest Burgers team up with Boursin for a steak frites special

Steak frites is just one of those perfect dishes, isn’t it? Juicy pink steak, crisp golden fries, rich béarnaise sauce… It’s a French bistro comfort food classic. If it’s on a menu, it’s hard not to order it.

The ingredients have to be good, though. There’s really nowhere to hide with a dish that simple. And you can’t really put a new spin on something so classic, can you? 

Or maybe you can. Because now, Honest Burgers have taken the iconic French dish and turned it into a burger.

Launching ahead of National Burger Day on 27th August, the new burger is a summer special in collaboration with the nation’s favourite indulgent French cheese, Boursin. We’d say guilty pleasure, but there’s no guilt here.

The limited edition steak frites burger is the new special across all their branches, including Manchester, available for delivery or collection as well as eating in.

So we headed over to the Bridge Street restaurant to check it out. Because sitting on the terrace, eating burgers and drinking beer in the sunshine, is one of life’s greatest pleasures. 

The new burger certainly looks the part. The bottom bun is smothered with creamy, crumbly, Boursin cheese, followed by Honest Burgers’ signature chopped chuck steak and rib cap patty.

Then there’s smoked streaky bacon, French steak sauce, red onions and sharp pickle. 

And then it’s topped with a generous handful of homemade shoestring fries, paying homage to the classic steak frites.

Honest are famed for their 100% British beef patties made in their own butchery, which means you can have your burger served pink if you prefer. Which works absolutely brilliantly for this one.

Using chuck and rib cap (the fatty bit that’s skimmed off a ribeye steak) means the burger is juicy and chunky and actually tastes properly beefy. And the meat is chopped, not minced, which means it’s full of flavour as well as holding its shape.

It’s basically as close as you can get to a steak, without actually having a steak.

The silky, green steak sauce on the burger is a recreation of one of France’s best kept secret sauces – but we beg to know what’s in it because it tastes spectacular. 

It’s a classic béarnaise with tarragon, we’re told, cut with Dijon mustard, thyme, parsley and chives. It’s fresh and sharp and so well balanced. That, and the hit of garlic and herbs from the creamy cool Boursin, are what really make this burger.

Well, that and the crispy shoestring fries, which add texture to the whole thing. It’s just grated potatoes shallow-fried in oil until super crunchy, but they’re completely addictive. Maybe everything should be topped with crispy shoestring fries.

The rosemary salted chips are worth shouting about, too. They’ve been described by food critic Jay Rayner as “edible crystal meth”. 

Chips come automatically with every burger, because, rightly, they’re not an extra, they’re an essential. You’re speaking our language, Honest.

And the whole thing is even better value this month, thanks to the Eat Out to Help Out scheme – which means you can get 50% off food and soft drinks per person, up to £10. Plus, Honest have passed on some of the chancellor’s VAT reduction, too.

It means you can get the new steak frites special burger with chips, bacon gravy and a Karma Cola for less than £9 all in. 

We know what we’ll be doing this summer. See you on the terrace.

The steak frites burger is available at Honest Burgers on Bridge Street until 31st August, including eat-in, collection, Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

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