Thursday 24 December 2015

Shake Shack, Cardiff burger restaurant review


The opening of the first Shake Shack branch in the UK outside of London is a massive coup for Cardiff.

With its origins as a hot dog cart in New York City’s Madison Square Park, the St David’s Centre branch of Shake Shack is the 71st for the gourmet fast food chain which was founded by legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer.


It’s easy to dismiss a chain opening as invariably a bad thing. However, as long as a restaurant offers quality and raises the bar for its category then I'll welcome it with open arms.

Shake Shack has quality in spades. 


Place your order at the counter from a menu which includes 100% Aberdeen Angus burgers, Chicago style hot dogs, frozen custard, and a cracking array of drinks including the eponymous shakes, Abita Brewing Company root beer, ShackMeister Ale brewed by the well regarded Thornbridge, and beers from Welsh breweries Celt and Tiny Rebel.

Then, take a buzzer and wait five minutes for your nosh to be cooked to order. 

Commendably, burgers are cooked medium unless otherwise requested. 

Furthermore, a potato bread roll is a top drawer element of each burger, offering robustness and good squidge. 


A double ShackMeister (£9.75) saw two juicy, well flavoured, course ground patties topped with oozing American cheese, hyper crisp battered shallot rings and signature ShackSauce made from a base of mayo, ketchup and mustard. 


A double SmokeShack (£10.75) again saw two cheese oozed patties but this time topped with thick rashers of crisp smoked bacon and sweet and spicy chopped cherry peppers. 


Finally, a Shack Stack (£8.75) combined a single cheese topped patty, lettuce, tomato and a crisp panko crumb coated mushroom filled with an additional layer of melted cheese. This is a burger with the ooze factor and, on its own, the ’Shroom burger (£5.50) is a veggie option which puts most other burger joints to shame. 


Fries (£3) are crinkle cut as standard but it’s definitely worth an extra quid for the cheese topped variety (£4) - the velvety cheese sauce seemingly made from an indulgent combination of cheese and liberal amounts of butter. 


Shakes (£5.25) were good but I’m not sure it's worth naming the restaurant after them - they’re certainly not the standout. We ordered a malted peanut butter flavour and a malted black and white made from a mix of vanilla and chocolate. 

 
Finally, Shake Shack’s concretes (£5) are worthy of mention - essentially a gourmet McFlurry. I’ve previously had the Union Shack combining chocolate frozen custard, gooey pieces of St John Bakery brownie, fudge sauce, Paul A.Young chocolate chunks and sea salt. However, Shake Shack Cardiff also offer a Welsh cake flavour with a portion of profits going to local homeless charity, The Wallich.


If you haven’t already guessed, I’m a huge fan of Shake Shack.

However, the prices won’t be to everyone’s taste - an entry level cheeseburger, fries and drink will set you back £11.25 whilst you’re looking around the £20 mark for a double speciality burger, cheese fries and a beer.

The Details:

Address - Shake Shack, St. David’s 2, Upper Grand Arcade, Cardiff CF10 2EF
Telephone -  01923 555173


Shake Shack Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

8 comments:

  1. The insistence on carrying a dog-friendly menu in a no-dogs allowed shopping mall is odd. ��

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @OwsWills - Oh yeah, that's really, really weird.

      Delete
  2. Way over-priced!! God help the wallet with a family of 4 dropping in for a bite to eat when out shopping

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can't agree with you I'm afraid. I was massively underwhelmed by the burgers here. They lacked flavour, far too greasy and far too expensive for what they are. In my opinion, they're a distant second in their category (posh fast food) to Five Guys and a long way off the quality of Brewdog's burger

    ReplyDelete
  4. Food hygiene rating of 2... as if I'm going there

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Kat - It's up to 5 now so all good for a visit!

      Delete
  5. I have a question as Shake Shack prides itself on being dog friendly as they cater for dogs and also allow dogs in the restaurant.

    Cardiff is probably the most illogical branch ever as how are you supposed to take a dog in as it’s in the centre and not on the outside of the centre. If you were to take a normal dog inside the centre, you would instantly asked to take the dog outside again. This is why it confuses the living daylights ouf of me. Apologies for the rant but it was necessary as the location is just downright odd.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Shamir - To be fair that is worth a good rant. That's pretty odd!

      Delete