Slug and Lettuce

There is an immensely popular place in York, located just by the river, crowded almost every weekend and having a really nice interior!

What’s more they run some brilliant offers. Mondays and Tuesdays you can have a burger & a pint/glass of wine/soft drink for only £7! Or three of their smaller dishes, looking a bit like tapas, for £12 or five of them for £18 all day every day!

Having really nicely designed interior and a fantastic location I couldn’t wait to pop into have a burger! Last Monday together with my girlfriend we had a fantastic opportunity to do that.

WHAT IS IT LIKE INSIDE?

I really like the way the restaurant looks. It is bright, with some nice touches and a bit kitschy, but well matched interior design decorations. I loved the bar, with it’s glass adornments it looks quite fancy and a bit prosecco-type fabulous! Not surprisingly you can have quite a lot of prosecco there, but also many cocktails are on 2-4-1 offer, which is a great value for money, especially if someone fancies Passion Fruit Daiquiri. Then the place opens to a brilliant main floor with a huge window on the right-hand side overlooking the river. The seats are comfy and look good, many of them ornamented in a quirky way giving the place nice touch. It is a bit of a shame however, that all the seats by the window are bar seats and tables only, which means you can’t order your food there. Mild disappointment I would say, with a summer as hot as this one it would be brilliant to eat right next to the view on the York’s bridge. Especially since you can open it, which gives the place a nice ‘outside dining’ touch.

The restaurant part is further to the back of the place, and you can also have some great spots right by the windows, but they’re not this impressive as the bar ones. Anyway you’re sat comfortably, the place simply looks nice and the atmosphere is brilliant to have a casual dine out.

WHAT’S ON THE MENU?

You’ll actually find quite a lot in Slug & Lettuce menu: chicken, pasta, steaks, salads, desserts, the little dishes in a form of Spanish tapa (but not necessarily having anything to do with tapas, if you’re more into tapa experience check out my review of Ambiente Tapas restaurants here), and of course S&L burgers, which I was mainly after. All of their burgers are served in a brioche bun, burger sauce, Cos lettuce, their choice of pickle (for us it was a pickled cabbage), a sticky BBQ sauce and skinny fries. You get a choice of five burgers:

• Cheese & Bacon Beef Burger - the most classical option with beef, cheddar, and bacon;

• Smothered Chicken Burger - chicken breast, bacon, cheddar and BBQ sauce;

• Chipotle Bean Burger - which is a vegetarian option with BBQ chipotle quinoa, smoked Cheddar, red pepper and sweet corn, in a crispy breadcrumb coating;

• Reuben Burger - a beef burger topped with slow-cooked beef rib, with cheese and French’s mustard;

• Wagyu Burger - a burger made of the famous marbled Wagyu beef imported from Japan, with creamy garlic mushrooms and Camembert.

What is really nice about this menu is that you can add some extra ingredients to your liking, paying between 49p-99p, which is not a lot given that the burgers are £7 with a drink! However, here’s the tricky part: if you order Reuben burger you have to pay extra £1 and if you order the Wagyu position it will be extra £2. Something that is written on the menu, but in a really tiny font and the staff don’t make it clear enough when introducing you to the offer.

THE VERDICT

My girlfriend and I ordered different burgers, as usual with me hoping to get a huge ‘bite’ from hers. We customized our choices a bit as well. She took the vegetarian option with quinoa, but being a huge meat eater she added asked for some Pull Pork with it (which arrived in a small bowl, not in the burger), and I asked for some extra cheese in my Wagyu order. Both burgers were really nice, but we couldn’t help being disappointed with our misunderstanding of the Chipotle bean burger. It turned out that everything: the quinoa, cheese, corn and peppers were mixed into one patty and then deep fried, which made the burger really dry. However, the pulled pork levelled the effect and it was a  great choice of hers to order it extra. It was relatively light as for a burger and quite tasty. My burger was really good, even though my girlfriend didn’t quite like it. So it all boils down to your preferences apparently. I’d definitely recommend adding the extra cheese, as Camembert by itself is not enough.

The fries were pretty standard. The cold pint of Amstel definitely worked for my girlfriend, and I was ok with a glass of the house red. Maybe it wasn’t my favourite, but on the other hand what kind of snob orders wine to a burger and then complains about its quality? (this is my inner critic who stopped me from moaning).

Anyway, I think the Slug and Lettuce was a great option for a Tuesday dine out, especially because of the nice vibe the place has in these hot July days. The burgers were nice, and the price even better. It’s worth watching out for everything  written in the menu, even with a small font to avoid any surprises at the counter. However, I wouldn’t go there if it wasn’t for the deal. I have had definitely better burgers at Poznań’s Fat Bob (you can read my review here).

Good option for a student life chilling when you have slightly more on your account than some pennies for a ‘pomidorówka’ (more here), especially when you are in York for the summer!