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29 Clarges Street, W1J 7EF

http://www.burgerandlobster.com/

020 7409 1699

If only life consisted of clear choices rather than the nuanced compromises that we often have to make. Well at Burger & Lobster your options are sublimely limited. Do you want to eat burger or lobster? That’s it. The  burger comes with fries and salad and the lobster comes with fries and salad. Simple enough? To complicate matters slightly the lobster can be served in a bun as a lobster roll or simply grilled in its shell.

That’s as far as it goes.  Now none of this is meant to denigrate B&L because what they do, they do very well and at a very acceptable price point. The burgers pack a meaty punch and the lobsters, which come with drawn and garlic butter sauces, are full of flavour and succulent. The lobster is particularly good value and the restaurant brings in batches of four hundred of the sacrificial crustaceans for our gustatory enjoyment every other day. On a viewing of the lobster tanks I was disappointed to note that B&L’s Russian owners hadn’t installed long-bearded Orthodox priests to intone solemn chants and lamentations to accompany the final scuttle of the arthropods to their destiny; they are the same bunch who are behind the upmarket Goodman steak houses and have clearly hit on a successful formula as the brand  has  expanded beyond its Mayfair base to Dean St in Soho and will be opening further east in Farringdon’s St. John St.

Service is charming and efficient and if the room lacks the boho style that is more discernable in the Soho outlet, it doesn’t seem to bother the rich young things that make up the clientele. If fact B&L really functions as a McDonalds for the Made in Chelsea set with the Mayfair branch not even taking bookings. Fifty Shades of Grey anyone? No thanks-too complicated. Burger & Lobster will do very nicely thanks.