How does Burger King’s new wagyu burger compare to Ramsay’s £85 Harrods version?

Burger King’s new item is endorsed by Gordon Ramsay and follows one he lent his name to at Harrods

Few terms in food are more open to mischief than “wagyu”. Literally meaning “Japanese beef”, in simple terms wagyu is the umbrella term for the four main breeds of Japanese beef cow. At one end of the scale this means the Kobe A5-grade beef, fed on beer and grain until the flesh is marbled like Liberace’s bathroom.

But it also means all manner of other Japanese cows, reared in less luxurious conditions and with less delectable meat. More recently, it has also included cross-breeds, such as British wagyu, which needs only to have been sired by a wagyu bull.

In other words, while the highest-quality Japanese beef is wagyu, wagyu does not exclusively describe the best Japanese beef. All the same, in recent decades, advertising your “wagyu” beef has been a way to trade off the mystique of Japanese beef, and ramp up the prices, without necessarily offering the highest-quality product.

In 2018, when Gordon Ramsay was asked by an American publisher which three food trends he couldn’t stand, he said: foams, truffle oil and the “ubiquitous” wagyu. “Because [wagyu]’s a special cut,” he explained. “It needs to be treated with a little bit of respect.”

Gordon Ramsay is supporting the new burger despite having been critical of Wagyu in 2018 - David Parry/PA

Evidently respect takes many different forms. As of Tuesday September 9, two Gordon Ramsay-endorsed wagyu burgers are available in the UK. There is the £85 “1849 Burger” at Gordon Ramsay Burger in Harrods, which comprises Japanese Kobe A5 wagyu, pecorino cheese, mushroom ragu, truffle porcini aioli, 12-year aged balsamic vinegar and watercress, served with truffle fries, for a grand total of 1,665 calories. Shop until you drop dead of a heart attack. Then there is “The Wagyu”, Burger King’s first foray into the breed, made with 100 per cent British wagyu, which has been launched today priced £11, or presumably more in service stations and airports, as part of the chain’s upmarket “Gourmet Kings” range. Valiantly, I tried both.

The new item is part of Burger King’s upmarket ‘Gourmet Kings’ range - Amy Bryant

Burger King is at pains to point out that Ramsay has not designed The Wagyu himself, merely given it his sweary imprimatur, presumably in exchange for a Whopper of a cheque. It is a reflection of Ramsay’s gargantuan fame that he is being enlisted not as a chef but as a celebrity. The marketing campaign around The Wagyu leans into his lack of involvement, with a series of television ads pointing out that he did not make it himself.

“I was blown away,” Ramsay said at a launch event for The Wagyu last week, speaking of the burger rather than his cheque. “This is revolutionary. It has been nearly a decade in the making. When you taste it, there will be that moment where you just think, ‘F---ing delicious.’”

When I tasted it, there was not this moment. The Wagyu comprises a patty made from British wagyu beef, flame-grilled in the usual Burger King style, in a brioche bun, with rocket, caramelised onion mayonnaise, pickled onions, sweet caramelised onions and crispy onions. If that sounds like a lot of onion, you would be right.

“I think beef and onions is a timeless combination,” said Christian Binney, Burger King’s director of food development, who oversaw the invention of The Wagyu. “We’re not reinventing the wheel.”

Christian Binney, Burger King’s director of food development, assesses the new burger with Gordon Ramsay - David Parry/PA

It is true that this is a timeless combination, but mostly at burger vans, where onions, caramelised all day, cover a multitude of sins in the beef. Surely this onslaught is unnecessary in a wagyu burger, where you want to taste the beef?

The two things that hit you when you first bite into The Wagyu are sweetness and smoke. The beef tastes like all Burger King burgers: beefy and flamy. I would bet my bottom dollar, if not his, that even Ramsay’s three-star palate could not distinguish in a blind taste between the wagyu patty and Burger King’s usual Angus.

The smoky punch lasts only a few seconds before it is overwhelmed by the four-pronged onion assault. The brioche is sweet, but not as sweet as the onion mayo, which is more like a jam. The pickled onions are meant to cut through the fattiness of the beef, but they are unevenly distributed, so you get none in one bite and a mouthful in the next. I have no idea what the point of the crispy onions is, as they are completely soggy from stewing in mayo. The rocket, also soggy, offers nothing but colour, a faint memory of chlorophyll to think about as the onion recurs on you for four hours after you finish eating.

Burger King’s new product suffers somewhat from a surfeit of onions - Ed Cumming

At Harrods, you can at least taste the beef – or you can once you have removed it from the vast stack it inhabits, a kind of Tower of Babel of luxurious-sounding ingredients. As well as an unusually rich patty there are slices of steak, the meat so buttery it has a foie-ish kind of finish to it. Unfortunately in the burger the beef is drowned out by other ingredients. Not onions, mercifully, but pecorino and mushroom and truffle and, most egregiously, an acrid, balsamic-soaked bun. Like a flautist at a Metallica gig, no ingredient could possibly make itself known amid such a cacophony.

The Wagyu burger at Harrods may cost £85, but you can at least taste the beef - Ed Cumming

There was also a random small bit of something blue in the middle, which I was assured was just ink-stained rind from the cheese. Not to be difficult, but if I’m paying £85 for a burger – £96.63 once service and a cover charge were included – is it so much to ask for there not to be an ink-stained rind in the middle?

The caveat to all this is what we might call the “well, duh” clause. Harrods operates as the HQ of a kind of value vortex in Knightsbridge, where fools are parted from their money 364 days a year and none of the usual economic rules apply. If you are naive enough to order the £85 wagyu burger at Gordon Ramsay Burger in Harrods, you deserve to be ripped off, and most likely won’t mind when you are.

Similarly, you are on a hiding to nothing if you go to Burger King and expect a gourmet Japanese beef experience for £11.

The common factor is over-complication. Burgers are meant to be simple. The best example in London is found at The Plimsoll, a pub in Finsbury Park, and it costs £14. It comprises beef, cheese, bun, pickle, onion – the correct amount – and sauce. The word “wagyu” is nowhere to be seen. The classic Burger King bacon double cheeseburger is also, on its own terms, a thing of meaty, melty beauty.

Still, it is a perverse testament to the economies of food that one wagyu burger could cost £11 and another £85 and neither of them represents good value. Except, naturally, to Gordon Ramsay.

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