Heard. Burger Borough — Restaurant in London

We'd seen this place on weekend television and as smash burgers are my favourite and Borough is not far from home we dropped by on Tuesday last week. On arrival the restaurant looked very nice immediately, but as we were shown to our table, I noticed a large amount of plated food just sitting under the lights at the pass. I was also struck at how small the burgers looked. This sadly set the tone. Our pleasant waiter came over quickly to take our order. I ordered a Smokestack burger and my husband had the Heard signature burger. We both ordered fries topped with cheese and pickles and one salad. Our drinks came quickly and they were very nice, however we had a 30 minute wait for our mains. When our mains arrived, my husbands burger was as ordered but mine was the wrong burger with the right fries. I actually saw the waiter give my burger to the table next to us. I brought this to the attention of the waitress and she took my food away. Another wait ensued during which time my husband and I tried his cheesy chips. These had clearly been left on the pass for some time as the cheese had congealed into a quite unpleasant sticky mass. The pickle topping was lovely, but the lukewarm potato and cheese mass was claggy and rather unpleasant to eat. Eventually the waitress brought my Smokestack burger, with the right fries and my salad. The salad was fresh, appealing to the eye and was covered in a very nice dressing. However no cutlery or napkins were provided to enable me to eat the dressing soaked salad, so again we had to call the waitress. By this time I was really hungry, having not had any lunch. I went straight to the fries and once again, as was the case with my husbands they were tepid and congealed. Excited to try the smash burger I had seen touted on television I eagerly tucked into my burger and what a disaster that was; the burger was nearly cold, there was no char on the patties and they were dry as old leather. Amy half decent smash burger needs to have a decent char and to be running with juice. This burger was nearly cold, tough and dry. The potato bun was also dry and crumbling. I ploughed on because by this point I was really hungry but I didn't enjoy the burger or fries at all. Really disappointing. Maybe they were having a bad night but the place wasn't completely full and despite the issues with orders and quality control I actually watched two people that I took to be the owners leave the premises and go over to road to another venue at one point. The only enjoyable aspects of the meal were the space itself, the lager and the highlight was a salad, which I had to start eating with my fingers in lieu of cutlery. The menu only really offers fries and burgers, so surely if these are the quality signature dishes being touted on national television they should be perfected and consistent. As it stands I've had higher quality and tastier burgers from high street burger chains than this place. I would add that due to the delay and mix up with the order they deducted the price of one burger, one fries and a salad. Frankly I would only have paid for the drinks and the salad. It says something when the only well prepared dish in your not cheap burger joint is a small, but tasty green salad. Hugely disappointed. Step up...

We saw this place highlighted on Saturday Kitchen, so seeing that we were in London for the weekend, we decided to try it out. We looked forward to it on a sunny Friday afternoon. Although we had made a reservation almost a week in advance, once we arrived the front of house person offered a choice of a two top right beside the toilet, or a table sitting against the waiting station. We reluctantly took the best of a bad choice, the "Waiting Station" table. We assumed that the place must be fully booked out for lunch and space was tight, but as we ate our meal the tables didn't fill out, barr another couple sitting on the stools at the window, our section remained completely empty! What was really surprising was as we were sitting there, streams of walk-ins were offered a choice of tables either in the nice windowed section or outside, a courtesy not offered to us. The burgers were OK, only; I've had way better. The chips were way over salted, so much so, 3-4 were enough. The glass of wine served must have been at about 20-25C, not great for a red in any situation. The real highlight was the front of house/server who seated us. At best she seemed disinterested making us feel welcome, but it was clear she couldn't care less. As we were sitting right beside the waiting station, the menus were stacked right beside my head. That's fine, but what is not acceptable, is the front of the house person reaching right across our table, arm one or two inches from my face to grab menus. This happened three times, once shortly after we were seated, once when we were waiting for our bill, and once whilst I was attempting to eat my burger! All of the other staff were getting the menus from the other side of the waiting station, but the front of house/server opted to interrupt us 3 times with no regard to our space or comfort for her own convenience. I've never experienced such ignorant and rude behaviour in a restaurant before. We could not wait to leave after finishing eating, we did not finish the food for the reasons described above. I had to laugh when a 12.5% service charge was automatically added to our bill, then when going to pay, there was a default option of an additional 15%, 20% or 22% gratuity on top. On the way to Heard we had a good walk through Borough Market, such a choice of good food and nice people. My advice is to stick to the market and don't bother...

A bit hit and miss at Heard for me. I had the smoke stack burger and it was delightful - patties cooked perfectly and accompanied by a beautiful bacon jam and Red Leicester cheese; the side salad was great with a tasty dressing and the chips were perfectly crisp but fluffy in the middle and I really appreciated the beef fat flavour. The cookie ice cream sandwich was lovely too and a nice light way to finish the meal. Unfortunately the service let the whole experience down. We had booked a table for two at 5pm and when we arrived the place was empty of diners. We were greeted nicely at the bar and shown to a table. After a short while the waitress came over to take our order, her tablet must not have been working as she didn’t say anything and just walked away. She returned empty handed and seemed really disinterested, took our order and left again without much of a word or smile. We got our drinks (a very crisp non-alcoholic lager) and had a couple of napkins plonked down without cutlery. Our burgers then arrived and, as I said before, were really great! We had a fork each on our trays and tried to make do but I had to ask for a knife for us each, one was begrudgingly bought over so my mum asked again for a knife for herself. I think maybe a set of cutlery for each guest should be standard, then we won’t have to bother the front of house staff. We were left for quite a while after we had finished our burgers, then when they were cleared we quickly asked for a cookie sandwich each as it really felt as though we weren’t supposed to be there and maybe they would rather us leave. The dessert itself was really tasty, only let down by the fact I saw the waitress take the tub of desserts out at the bar and plate them up with her bare hands. I’m not exactly squeamish and I’m sure her hands were clean but I don’t think every customer would be that lenient. Throughout the meal there was banging of utensils behind the bar and loud chatting between the staff, I used to work in a restaurant so I appreciate a good working relationship between staff members but seeing as we could hear their conversations over the loud ‘background’ music it was all a bit much. It’s such a shame because I think it could be a lovely place to dine out, it just seems to lack a bit of polish and decent front of...