We think our chefs know how to cook a seriously good burger. Hand-made with top notch ingredients like Aubrey Allen 28 day dry aged beef, brioche buns from Brown Sugar Bakery plus some great herbs and spices. And maybe a dollop or two of the chef’s secret burger sauce.
So when an email dropped into the inbox over at the James Figg in Thame telling head chef Jack Bull he’d made it into the finals of the National Burger Awards 2016, we were more than a little bit excited.
Jack’s made a real name for his food since he became head chef at the pub almost two years ago, and his signature burgers have become quite famous. They far outsell everything else on his menu. They even made one of the team at the pub give up being a vegetarian after 26 years of not eating meat.
Jack loves nothing better than a good burger so when he read about the competition in a magazine called Pub & Bar, he decided to give it a go. Off went his burger recipe – an Aubrey Allen Burger served in a Brown Sugar Bakery brioche bun, with Monterey Jack Cheddar and Aubrey Allen smoked bacon – and he thought nothing more of it. Not long afterwards the news came that he’d made it into the finals and would be off to London to cook his burger for the judges. Jack’s excited, honoured and just a little bit nervous.
Next week, on Wednesday 24th February, he’ll be heading for the Islington Metal Works to take part in a cook-off and technical burger challenge. 15 other great chefs will also be there and the winner gets crowned the UK’s ultimate burger champion and wins £1,000 in prize money.
Good news tends to travel fast – Jack’s already been on the Kat Orman show on BBC Oxford, in the Oxford Mail and made it onto the cover of the Thame Gazette. But he’s keeping cool and practising hard for the finals.
Wish him luck! You can also follow the action live on Twitter here @CasualDiningMag #NationalBurgerAwards and @figgthame