The Best Burger in London: Which Kind You Actually Want

The best burger in the world is in London. So is the second best. Both of them say so on their own websites, and they are two different restaurants.

Bleecker states it was “Named the Best Burger in the World”. Black Bear Burger puts “The 2nd Best Burger in the World” in the title of its own homepage. Neither is lying. They are citing the same global ranking, the 2026 World’s 101 Best Burger Places, in which Bleecker says it came first. The useful thing is not the ranking at all.

It is that a city which had no burger culture worth the name fifteen years ago now has the top two places in a world list, and a genuine argument about which of them is right.

Old Compton Street settles nothing

Here is how tight this has become. Bleecker Soho is at 33 Old Compton Street. Burger and Beyond Soho is at number 10.

The self declared best burger in the world and one of its most serious rivals are twenty three doors apart on the same Soho street, and you can eat both in an evening if you are that way inclined. Most people who argue about London burgers have never done the one thing that would settle it.

What London actually competes on

Read what these places say about themselves and the pattern is immediate. None of them lead with the toppings.

Bleecker leads with 40 day dry aged beef. Burger and Beyond says it is built on “a relentless focus on quality. From our dry aged beef to the way every burger is cooked and finished, nothing is left to chance.” Black Bear leads with its own farm: “Inspired by Canadian hospitality and our family Beef farm in Devon, we use the best of British beef.”

Dry ageing is a steakhouse technique. Applying it to a burger is an expensive way to chase flavour that most of the world’s burger restaurants do not bother with, and it is the single thing that separates London’s serious burger rooms from its good ones. If a London burger place is not telling you about the beef, it is telling you about the sauce, and that is the answer to a different question.

Bleecker

Bleecker Burger

Address

33 Old Compton Street, Soho, W1D 5JU, and eight more

Nearest

Leicester Square for Soho

Hours

Soho, Monday to Thursday 11am to 11.30pm, Friday and Saturday to midnight, Sunday to 10.30pm

Price

Counter service

Standing

Their own claim: named number one in the 2026 World’s 101 Best Burger Places. Started as a single street food truck

How to get in

No bookings anywhere on their site: it is counter service, eat in, click and collect or delivery, and it is the only place on this page that takes no reservation at all. Do not arrive at eight on a Friday expecting to be seated. Nine sites across London and the hours differ at every one, which is the thing that actually catches people out.

The hours are genuinely inconsistent between branches, so here they are in one place.

Where	Address	Hours
Soho	33 Old Compton Street, W1D 5JU	Mon to Thu 11am to 11.30pm, Fri and Sat to midnight, Sun to 10.30pm
Spitalfields	Old Spitalfields Market, E1 6EA	Daily 11am to 10pm
Victoria	205 Victoria Street, SW1E 5NE	Mon to Thu 11.30am to midnight, Fri and Sat to 1am, Sun to 11pm
Bloomberg Arcade	16 Bloomberg Arcade, EC4N 8AR	Mon to Wed 11am to 11pm, Thu and Fri to midnight, Sat to 11pm, Sun to 10pm
London Bridge	104 Tooley Street, SE1 2TH	Mon to Wed 11am to 11.30pm, Thu to Sat to midnight, Sun to 11.30pm
Baker Street	195 Baker Street, NW1 6UY	Mon to Thu 11am to midnight, Fri and Sat to 12.30am, Sun to 11pm
Seven Dials Market	Short’s Gardens, WC2H 9AU	Mon and Tue 12pm to 10pm, Wed to Sat 11am to 11pm, Sun 11am to 9pm
Camden	45 Middle Yard, Camden Lock Place, NW1 8AF	Mon to Sat 11am to 11pm, Sun to 10.30pm
Westfield	The Balcony, Westfield, W12 7GF	Mon to Sat 11am to 10pm, Sun 11am to 7pm

Victoria is the late one, running to 1am on Friday and Saturday, and it is the only serious burger in London that is still serving when the pubs have turned out. Westfield closes at 7pm on a Sunday, which is four hours earlier than Victoria on the same day.

The other two

Black Bear Burger

Address

Brixton Village, Exmouth Market and Westfield, plus six food hall counters

Nearest

Brixton, Farringdon or Shepherd's Bush

Price

Full service restaurants, bookable

Standing

Their own homepage title: The 2nd Best Burger in the World

How to get in

Three full service restaurants rather than counters, and they take bookings at all three, which makes this the one to choose if you want a table held rather than a queue. Brixton Village was the first and Westfield is the largest. There are also six food hall counters, at Market Halls Canary Wharf, Paddington, Victoria and Oxford Street, and at Boxpark Shoreditch and Camden, which are walk up. Hours differ by site and their own page tells you to check the one you are going to.

The Devon farm is the point here. A burger restaurant that owns the cows is doing something structurally different from one that buys beef well, and it is the reason Black Bear can make the claim it makes. Their chicken is halal at every site, and the beef is halal at Westfield.

Burger and Beyond

Address

10 Old Compton Street, Soho. Also 147 Shoreditch High Street and Arch 231, Borough Yards, plus a fourth in Brighton

Nearest

Leicester Square, Shoreditch High Street or London Bridge

Price

Bookable

Standing

Dry aged beef, trading since 2015, and in their own words championing modern refinement

How to get in

Every site takes a booking, and the Soho one is the practical answer to an Old Compton Street evening that has a time attached to it. Bleecker across the road takes none at all. There is now a Brighton branch as well, which is the first time the group has left London.

The one that includes the chips

Honest Burgers states it in capitals on its own menu: all our burgers come with chips, coleslaw or salad. That single line changes the comparison more than any ranking does, because almost everywhere else on this page the side is a separate decision and a separate charge.

The chips are the reason people go: rosemary salted, and their own note is fresh, never frozen.

The other thing worth knowing is that Honest does not publish a burger price. Its menu page carries every burger and every ingredient with no figure against any of them, because the pricing is per site and it prompts you for your local menu instead. Sides and extras are the exception: sauces are £1.20, bacon gravy £2.50, a Mighties slider £5, and loading your chips with cheese sauce is £1.50 on top of the chips that already come with the burger. Several items carry an asterisk meaning not available at all sites. So the branch decides both the price and the range, which is unusual for a group this size and worth checking before you walk to a specific one.

Honest Burgers

Address

4a Meard Street, Soho, W1F 0EF, and sites across London

Nearest

Tottenham Court Road or Piccadilly Circus for Soho

Hours

Soho, Sunday to Wednesday 11am to 10pm, Thursday to Saturday 11am to 11pm

Price

No burger price published. The menu page carries no figure against any burger and directs you to a local menu instead, because the range and the pricing are set per branch

Standing

The Honest was named National Burger Awards 2026 winner on their own menu listing

How to get in

The burger to order is The Honest, their 2026 award winner: smashed dry aged beef, American cheese, thick cut smoked streaky bacon, beef and onion relish, onion and pickles. Every burger includes chips, coleslaw or salad, which is the real difference against the counter-service places nearby. Check the local menu before travelling to a particular branch, because items marked with an asterisk are not available at every site. The Soho branch takes bookings, serves halal beef and is dog friendly inside.

The chains, honestly

Honest Burgers started in Brixton and is now across London, and the reason people rate it is consistency rather than peaks: you can walk into any of them and know what you are getting, which is not true of much else in this city.

Shake Shack and Five Guys are American imports doing an American thing competently. Neither is trying to win the argument this page is about, and there is no shame in either, but do not cross London for one.

How to order a burger properly

Order it as it comes. Every place on this page has one burger it is known for and has spent years balancing. Swapping the cheese and holding the sauce is how you end up eating a worse version of something that was already decided.

Go at an odd hour. These are small rooms with counters. One o’clock and eight o’clock are queues. Three in the afternoon is the same burger with a seat.

Match the format to the evening. Counter and queue at Bleecker, table service at Black Bear, an actual booking at Burger and Beyond. The burgers are all serious. The evenings are not interchangeable.

Check the branch, not the brand. Bleecker’s Westfield closes at 7pm on Sunday and its Victoria site runs to 1am on Saturday. Turning up at the wrong one of nine is the commonest way this goes wrong.

Everything here was taken from each restaurant’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Burger restaurants change hours and sites more often than most. Confirm before you travel.

Cheap eats in London puts the burger against the pasta and the pizza on price, and finds that a cheeseburger, fries and a drink comes to £18.25 before service.

Halal restaurants in London covers the other half of the Bleecker story: halal beef at five of its sites, the butcher named, the stunning method published, and no Bleecker fully halal.

Where to go next

The best fried chicken in London covers the same price range, and the most famous name in it no longer has a restaurant.

The best restaurants in London covers the rooms where the cooking is the reason to go, and the steak restaurants cover the same beef taken seriously in a different direction.

By neighbourhood, Soho holds both Old Compton Street contenders and Shoreditch holds the third. The pubs cover where to go afterwards.

Questions we get asked

What is the best burger in London?

Two places claim a world title and both are in London, from the same ranking. Bleecker says it was named number one in the 2026 World’s 101 Best Burger Places, and Black Bear Burger puts the 2nd Best Burger in the World in its own homepage title. Bleecker is counter service across nine sites and takes no bookings at all. Black Bear runs three full service restaurants, all bookable, plus six food hall counters. Burger and Beyond is the serious third and books across four sites.

Where is the best burger in Soho?

Both of the contenders are on the same street. Bleecker is at 33 Old Compton Street and Burger and Beyond is at number 10, twenty three doors apart. Bleecker is a counter and a queue, Burger and Beyond takes bookings, so the choice is usually about the evening rather than the burger. Honest Burgers is a four minute walk away on Meard Street and books as well.

Do you need to book a burger restaurant in London?

For the best of them, yes, and only one refuses. Bleecker is counter service with no booking mentioned anywhere on its site, so it is a queue at every one of its nine branches. Black Bear takes bookings at all three of its restaurants, Burger and Beyond at all four of its sites, and Honest at its Soho branch, so if the evening has a fixed time and more than two people in it, Bleecker is the one to avoid.

What makes London burgers different?

The beef, and specifically dry ageing it. Bleecker leads with 40 day dry aged beef, Burger and Beyond says nothing is left to chance from its dry aged beef onward, and Black Bear works from its family beef farm in Devon. Dry ageing is a steakhouse technique and applying it to a burger is expensive, which is why most burger restaurants elsewhere do not bother.

Where can you get a burger late at night in London?

Bleecker's Victoria branch at 205 Victoria Street runs to midnight Monday to Thursday and to 1am on Friday and Saturday, which makes it the latest serious burger in central London. Baker Street is close behind at 12.30am on Friday and Saturday. Most of the others stop between 10pm and 11.30pm.

Is Honest Burgers worth it?

For consistency, yes. It started in Brixton and is now across London, and the case for it is that you can walk into any branch and know exactly what arrives. That is a real virtue in a city where it is not true of much. It is not trying to win the argument between Bleecker and Black Bear.