Veggie burger, fries and indulgent ‘concrete’ ice cream at Shake Shack, Covent Garden

If you’re a fan of burger and fries and fancy a relaxed bite to eat in Covent Garden, I’d recommend you pay a visit to Shake Shack, Covent Garden – one of two UK branches of the successful American burger chain that originally sprouted from a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park.

I dropped in to the Covent Garden Piazza branch for lunch last week with my friend and fellow blogger, Becca from Amuse Your Bouche.

At Shake Shack, you queue to place your order at the kitchen, then collect your food and carry your trays over to an indoor seating area in the main piazza. Becca and I ordered burgers, fries, drinks and ice cream – a real American feast.

The ‘Shroom Burger (£5.25) was a breaded and crisp-fried portabello mushroom filled with melted cheese and topped with fresh, crisp salad and ‘shack sauce’, and served in a lightly toasted bun. As we bit into our burgers, the melted cheese oozed out in the most pleasing fashion. Not healthy, sure, but yummy.

The crinkle cut Cheese Fries (£3.95) came with a gorgeous warm cheese sauce, reminiscent of good, home-cooked mac and cheese. We ate every crumb.

There’s a good range of drinks on offer at Shake Shack, from lemonade to ice tea, to root beer and well as the usual sodas – essentially when enjoying a salty burger and fries. But the real star of the show was the desserts…

Shake Shack’s signature Concrete desserts (£5 for a single or £7.50 for a double) are made with frozen custard ice cream, blended at high speed with mix-ins to create a dense, indulgent dessert.

Becca opted for Stick Toffee, a vanilla custard, with chocolate toffee, paul.a.young chocolate chunks, salted caramel sauce and malt powder.  Meanwhile, I opted for a Union Shack, made with chocolate custard, St JOHN Bakery chocolate hazelnut brownie, fudge sauce, paul.a.young chocolate chunks and sea salt.

Both desserts were delicious, intense and hard to put down, but after filling up on burger and fries, neither of us made it to the bottom of our cups. I’ll be going back to make a second attempt, that’s for sure.

We were invited to eat as guests of Shake Shack for the purposes of this review