MEATmarket - Jubilee Market, Covent Garden
MEAT. IN A MARKET. MEATmarket. No messing around here. For their second venture in 6 months, the MEATLiquor team have gone back to basics. Utilitarian, stripped-down, situated on the mezzanine floor above Covent Garden’s less salubrious market. Judging by the old menus on the stairwell, the space was previously occupied by a particularly low-end Chinese restaurant. Jubilee Market, it’s called, and I can only assume they picked this location as their way of showing respect to Brenda in her Diamond year. Crowns off to you, chaps.
I don’t know what I was expecting when I found out about their plans for a second location but this wasn’t it. This is proper fast food. There’s a few high tables and stools, no table service: you place your order at the till and they shout out your name when it’s done, which was bloody quick when we were there, even though it was press night and they’d only done one previous full service. The kitchen is huge, like McDonalds. Obviously having learned a lesson from the ridiculous queues at the mothership they are clearly aiming to shift high volumes with a quick turnover. Nowt wrong with that. This is a burger joint, after all.
At MEATmarket they have a pared-down food and booze menu with a few new surprises. First up - the Black Palace burger. This slab of pure filth takes two beef patties, some American cheese and a mixture of onions and gherkins all steamed together into a glorious gooey mess. This is the most full-on burger they’ve done (there’s no way you could do two), and like most palaces it’s a glorious thing of majestic beauty. Apparantly it’s an homage to the US chain White Castle Burger. See what they did there?
They’ve also introduced a brand new menu of hot dogs. I went for the RIPPER, which is a bacon-wrapped ‘dawg covered in crunchy bacon bits and onions (on a base of ketchup and French’s mustard, obviously). This is a superior quality wurst. Thick, juicy and a good amount of pop. I think it might actually pip Big Apple Hot Dogs, though I’ll have to do a side-by-side comparison to make my mind up properly. Answers on a postcard if anyone can suggest the best way to achieve this. The bun is basically the hot dog equivalent to the burger bun - light but chewy. Great stuff.
On the side we had the fries (same as MEATLiqour) and yet another new addition - deep fried jalapeño and cheese poppers. Yep, you guessed it, these were bloody good too.
Booze-wise they’ve got cans of Vedett and Hard Shakes - thick shakes with booze in. They are certainly tasty but one is enough - any more and you might be chucking your Black Palace on to the head of an unsuspecting market trader below. At current exchange rates a Hard Shake is more expensive than Mia Wallace’s Five Dollar Shake. Judging by the ones I tried (Vanilla with rum, Chocolate with Mozart liqueur) I think Mrs Wallace would approve.
So, sorry to write such a predictable glowing review but they’ve taken what they’ve learned at MEATLiquor, developed it, trimmed the fat (from the operation at least, certainly not from the food) and opened up an establishment dedicated to getting you high quality premium US ‘junk’ food as quickly as possible. Proper fast food. This is a place to hit late at night after a few drinks, gorge yourself on a sloppy burger, knock back a Hard Shake then fall asleep on the bus.
I have two reservations (not that anywhere takes them nowadays) :
1. Will they be able to keep up the quality with such a quick turnover?
2. Will there still be epic queues, such is the rabid desire for quality burgers at the moment?
Time will tell. On the strength of this preview I think they are going to do very well indeed. Having seen the setup first hand, I can’t help but think they’re going to roll it out to quite a few more sites at some point soon. I’m not going to give it a score as it was a freebie and they ain’t even open yet (they open tomorrow I believe) but you can probably tell that I think it’s pretty damn good. Go out, get drunk, stagger to Covent Garden and get yourself some MEAT.
MEATmarket
Tavistok St
London
WC2E 8BD
