Gourmet Burger Kitchen Duck Confit Burger

Review of Gourmet Kitchen Duck Confit Burger

Website: http://www.gbk.co.uk/

What they say:

The Duck Confit Burger combines succulent yet crisp confit duck layered with a creamy duck liver pâté. Topped with cheddar cheese, crispy shallots, rocket and a fiery ginger and apricot chilli jam, the burger is served up in one of our fresh brioche buns.

Price: £11.45 for the burger only.

Calories: Unknown.

When Gourmet Burger Kitchen announced that their new special menu featured not only a surprising new burger but an original milkshake as well, it seemed more than fitting that both Burger Lad® and Miss Milkshake should take it on with an epic tag team-style double review.

Based on the assumption of course that Double M would share her milkshake. Unlikely…

The innovative delights on GBK’s menu which had tempted the Burger Lad® team down there for a 4th time were created by New Zealand Chef Peter Gordon (full marks if you remembered the previous Blitzen, Persian Lamb and Taxi Driver reviews).

According to their website, Peter created the original Gourmet Burger Kitchen menu back in 2001, and has continued to work with them ever since. He’s been experimenting with ingredients, textures and flavours, and that was certainly apparent with what was on offer on his new menu.

The verdict? First we’ll hear Miss Milkshake’s version of events:

Right, I’ll spare you the details of the interior today, because frankly we’ve been here before, and I know you’re dying to find out what we thought of the food, rather than the wallpaper.

Burger Lad® and I were here to try ‘Peter’s Menu’. All of GBK’s food has Peter Gordon’s influence and New Zealand flair, but this special selection was a cut above the rest to really showcase Peter’s style and his passion for food.

Peter’s Menu @ GBK…

Since BL® was ordering the Duck Confit Burger, I opted for the Blazing Sombrero from the regular menu. That point is relevant, and I’ll come back to why later.

The other star on Peter Gordon’s oh-so-special menu was something I’d been lusting after ever since GBK teased me with a picture of it on Twitter: The Banana Biscoff Milkshake!

This is a remarkably simple concoction, but the flavours work so well I may actually call this the Milkshake of Destiny.

Basically banana ice cream blended with Lotus Biscoff caramelised biscuits. You know the swanky little biscuits you see served with good coffee? No? Maybe upgrade your next hotel stay.

The biscuits have a deliciously distinct caramel flavour (you can actually buy them in the form of a spread too!) and that flavour lingers on through the milkshake. Another one please! But I need to get back to the burger….

Gourmet Burger Kitchen Duck Confit Burger…

Burger Lad’s duck confit burger looked neat. Elegant. Glamorous if you will. Impressive really, since GBK (funnily enough) is a restaurant specialising in ‘gourmet burgers’ and this one seemed to raise the stakes even higher.

Could this be a new Duck Dynasty for gourmet burger dining?

GBK are clearly moving to step up their game in the burger industry, and with so much competition on the scene who could blame them.

I was definitely impressed, and a little gutted that I hadn’t actually ordered that burger for myself. I looked up at BL®, who seemed to be thinking the same thing as he eyed up my Blazing Sombrero.

I tucked into my half of the duck burger, and it suddenly dawned on me that I’d never had duck with duck until now. Not an unusual combination though. Sausages and bacon work, so why not duck confit and duck liver pâté, right?

Rich flavours, and creamy textures. Winning so far. Next to the pâté you have a perfect textural balance by way of a sprinkling of crispy onions. The mature cheese also played a part in elevating the perfectly-orchestrated burger into a chorus of tastes and textures; each layer working in harmony with the next.

The apricot and chilli jam gave it a wonderful sharp-yet-sweet tang, and was more like a smooth marmalade than your typical sweet chilli sauce.

It ticked all the boxes for colour, flavour, and feel, and was definitely the dawn of the Gourmet-Gourmet era for me. Not a large burger by any means, but like I always tell Burger Lad® it’s not the size of your pencil; it’s how you write your name, and this burger was the food equivalent of calligraphy.

Neat. Elegant. Glamorous…

I mentioned that I’d ordered the Blazing Sombrero burger, and the point being that when the two burgers were brought to our table the server seemed to assume that the giant spicy beef one was obviously meant for Burger Lad®.

After trying both I can see why. The duck confit burger would look very out of place on a burger challenge menu or someone after a meaty feast after a night out, but that wasn’t what GBK had set out to do. It worked for me. But did Burger Lad® share the same opinion? His tale is up next!

Miss Milkshake x

Lifting the lid since 2012…

We were actually invited down to London to sample Peter’s Menu 10 days before release to the public. GBK were holding a special Chef’s table with Peter Gordon at their GBK Test Kitchen on Baker Street but due to being in London the day before we couldn’t make it.

With our interest raised, we headed to the roundabout capital known as Swindon in search of Gourmet Burger Kitchen and by sheer luck found ourselves a premium parking space in Regent Circus – right next to their restaurant.

Now to be honest, I was not a fan of this “burger”… and I was really, really glad we had decided to do half and half on this and the Blazing Sombrero.

For me, there just didn’t seem to be enough meat on the thing (are we in Gourmet Burger Kitchen or Gourmet Confit Kitchen?) and as you can see from the cross-section shot it just seemed to be all bread.

In fact, it reminded me of eating a plain, sweet doughnut – lots of bread and no meat makes Burger Lad® a dull boy…

Bread to meat ratio needs attention…

I liked the chilli jam, a sort of variation on a sweet chilli sauce in my opinion and the duck was light and delicate. I just couldn’t distinguish any of the crispy shallots/onions to give it the crunchy texture it needed and I’m telling you now I did not taste onion once.

Also the cheese wasn’t really noticeable to the point I asked Miss Milkshake to check her half after I had scoffed mine. To me it just felt like way too little meat but more like a paste with some rocket, sauce and not much else.

It was difficult to determine where the confit (not crispy) ended and the pâté started. I liked the sauce, very much but that was about the only thing I added to my pro list which was soon outnumbered by cons. Shame.

This latest burger from Gourmet Burger Kitchen is not offensive or anything but I was very glad to get my teeth into the meaty Blazing Sombrero.

Let me put this bluntly for you – the Duck Confit is not a manly burger. And at £11.45 for the burger alone this is pretty steep… even when it came and I was doing the photo shoot I remarked how small it looked.

If I had twelve quid to spend in GBK and this was to be my last meal ever this would blatantly not be at the top of my list. So all you carnivores out there you have been warned!

Pleased to “meat” you – Blazing Sombrero…

Burger Lad®