Bunsen Burger: review

Bunsen Burger is not new. It’s been around since 2013. It’s not a hole-in-the-wall serving an obscure and vaguely pretentious menu you’re not cool enough to understand; there are five of them between Dublin and Cork and their menu fits on the back of a business card.

What Bunsen Burger is, is the best burger I have had in eight years in Ireland, full stop. The choice to embrace a radically simple menu and yet thrive means that they must be doing something right. Even McDonald’s can’t resist the impulse to be all things to all people. But Bunsen is a burger joint. There are no salads, no wraps, no children’s options. There are burgers (one or two patties, cheese or no cheese, regular or gluten-free bun, and garnish), fries (hand-cut, shoestring or sweet potato) and drinks (soda, milkshakes, or booze). A short menu means high turnover, and the ingredients are very fresh. There’s also nowhere to hide: if you can’t cook an amazing burger, there’s nothing else to eat.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWfM5EGAuwU/?taken-by=aldemath
aldemath on Instagram

Unlike some restaurants, which serve their burgers with a list of toppings so overwhelming they could be serving cardboard underneath, the emphasis at Bunsen is on the beef. It’s juicy, well-seasoned and incredibly moreish. My wife and I tried the gluten-free bun, which was perfect for a gluten-free bun: it maintained the structural integrity of the burger without reminding me that it existed. Their regular buns are classic American-style and made in-house.  

With drinks, a generous shared order of shoestring fries and our cheeseburgers, our cheque for two came to just over €22. We visited their Temple Bar location (dangerously close to college), where the service was warm though it took a minute to be noticed and seated. But now I’m just being picky. For a burger done right on a nostalgically hot and sunny summer afternoon, in a stylish and child-free dining room, I’d have waited longer and paid more.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *