Food: MeatLiquor is great fun
Burger joints are more popular than ever these days and are cropping up all over the place to allow hungry carnivores to fill their cake holes with premium beef products. MeatLiquor, which already has four branches in London, has now opened its doors to the hip and cool Brighton crowd with a brand new branch on York Place.
Be prepared to queue as this is a very popular place at the moment and, unless you are a party of six or more, you cannot make reservations. Myself and three pals joined the queue on a busy Friday night and within about 15 minutes were allowed in and escorted to the bar to await our table. First impressions were that we had in fact stumbled into a nightclub rather than a restaurant. The walls were painted black, loud music was blaring out, people were shouting at each other to be heard and there was stylised graffiti light panels and neon lights throughout. I particularly liked the crazy lit up clown face and the pink flamingo neon light. It definitely felt like the place to be and not somewhere to go for a quiet romantic meal.
After another 15 minutes wait we were shown to our table which had the usual bottled condiments at one end and kitchen roll instead of napkins. Due to the darkness I had to utilise my iPhone light to read the menu which had a long list of burgers and accompaniments. We opted for the buffalo wings (£6.50) and onion rings (£3.50) to start. I being a bit of a traditionalist went for the aptly named basic Meatburger (£6.50) with fries (£3.00). The others went for the Bacon Cheeseburger (£8.50) and cheese fries (£4.00).
There is also an extensively stocked bar and a long list of mouthwatering cocktails priced around the £7-9 mark. We ordered a round of cocktails and I plonked for the House Grog, a delicious and very strong rum cocktail (£8.50) which perhaps explains why diners are limited to a maximum of two each of this particular cocktail.
The starters arrived quickly and the onion rings were actual very large onions deep fried in light batter as opposed to the reconstituted onion rings you can get elsewhere. The buffalo wings were well seasoned, tasty and sufficient for the four of us to share. You don’t get plates here which adds to the nightclub feel of the place. Rather your food is served on greaseproof paper on plastic trays, or in bowls for fries/pickles and everyone just grabs their food and eats with their hands. Hence the brilliant idea of the kitchen roll to clean yourself up with afterwards. The burgers arrived soon after and the patties were densely packed, well cooked, well seasoned chunks of prime beef served on soft lightly toasted buns. The burger was delicious and my only complaint is that my hands were a little oily afterwards. The fries were crispy and fluffy inside, but the cheese fries looked and tasted like a load of cheddar had simply been dumped on top and allowed to congeal. I will definitely return here to try more from the menu and in particular the Shrimp Po-Boy, battered shrimp in a hot dog bun, that I spied on a nearby table.
Overall although this may not be the cheapest place to drink, it is a great fun place to go with a few friends to grab a food pitstop whilst on a night out.
MeatLiquor is located at 22-23 York Place, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 4GU.
Review by 25ThC
