Popti Bros, Mina Road: 'No popti pings were harmed in the making of these burgers'

Another strong contender for Bristol's best burger

As PXandTarts states below, the best burger in Bristol is a hotly contested title — a conundrum for the ages that The Bristol Sauce is planning to put firmly to bed this month. We’ll be smash-pattying your inbox every Sunday throughout August with a review of one of Bristol’s buns, with extra sauce delivered in the form of a few cheeky midweek reviews too.

Some of our extra reviews this month will be reserved for our paying Saucers — the lifeblood of our operation. If you want to experience the burger bonanza at its juiciest, upgrade your subscription now. Thank you!

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The best burger in Bristol is a hotly contested title.

“Popti Bros,” is the answer — at least according to my friends, who probably eat more burgers than anyone else in Bristol that actually pay for their meals.

In a battle of the big hitters, Popti Bros is just down the street from Danny's Burgers at Fierce & Noble on Mina Road; a quiet but well-served spot when it comes to food. It’s home to mysteriously award-riddled Namak, legendary convenience-store-and-so-much-more Sonni’s, and newcomer Fisk & Frite.

Popti comes from Leon Hughes, one half of esteemed and much-missed Rebel Roll (RIP the Krabbi Patty loaded with lobster, potato rosti and truffle mayo), who can be found in the kitchen with his sons. The other rebel was Alex Hayes who went on to found Squeezed in Wapping Wharf, another of Bristol's burger heavyweights, and still appears to be there for now despite threats to leave to become a teacher — no doubt to recruit more young rebels to his burgerous cause.

I don't know where the Bros’ name came from, but it is presumably nothing to do with popty ping, the Welsh nickname for microwave. I certainly didn't hear any pings during the making of our burgers, which came knobbly and gnarled from the grill into which they were smashed.

A serious upgrade on a McMuffin

The prosaically named “meat breakfast bun” (£9) meanwhile, had as much in common with a sausage and egg McMuffin as Busta Rhymes’ Glastonbury set had with modern attitudes towards women. Fun as they may be given the right levels of inebriation, perhaps they both belong back in the nineties.

Yes, the breakfast bun had a familiar-looking spiced pork patty, albeit one that actually tasted of pork, with a little herbiness thrown in. Indeed, there was a real fried egg and some mild, melty cheese. But the genius move was whacking the hash brown inside the bun for essential crunch and heft. The addition of the same harissa ketchup for a vaguely north African vibe banished all memories of post-night-out, guilt-erasing grease under the emotionless gaze of an eerie inanimate clown.

The unstoppable proliferation of Dubai chocolate is the worst thing to come out of Dubai since the UAE Pro League — too often saccharine, cloying and strangely bitty, like accidentally dropping some Shredded Wheat into your Coco Pops. I remain convinced it is this generation's Cadbury Fuse — an inexplicably popular mishmash of unharmonious ingredients that will fade into obscurity before making a comeback twenty years later in an out-of-town Home Bargains.

Brown butter is overdue a rebrand

And yet for all my vitriol, a “Dubai cookie pie” (£3.95) was actually nice enough. Effectively a thick cookie with rubbles of pistachio and kataifi, a restrained nutty sweetness and slight squidge confounded expectations. Far better than most trend-gobbling desserts. Although that particular (chocolate) bar is set very low. I'm not sure how many strawberries were harmed in the making of a milkshake (£5) the same arrestingly comic hue as Pink Panther but either way it was too sweet and too liquid.

But this is all just procrastination before the main event. Bristol's best burger. Danny's Destroyer. Oowee Obliterator. Milk Bun Mauler. The Popti Mac is far from the first burger to riff on the all-conquering, Grace-Dent-shilled chain’s infamous double-pattied, gherkin-riddled, sauce-slicked hero product. In fact most of those other competitors have their own version, as do Tommy Robinson-ejectors Hawksmoor, the “Big Matt”.

Please appreciate the artfully placed plastic bouquet

Popti do it as well as, if not better than, most. The rogue addition of harissa brought a subtle fruity warmth which flattered rather than obscured the clearly high quality beef, butchered at Beast next door, especially when tangled up into the customary sweetly acidic Big Mac sauce homage-slash-rip-off.

At £13.50 the price, at least in comparison to Maccy D’s, could also be accused of veering dangerously close to rip-off, as so eloquently put by the lone negative Google review (“Overrated food, seriously overpriced”). Still, that's the price we pay for using properly sourced meat rather than questionably-raised cows squished into miserable pucks of cardboard. With prices rising across the board, let's not advocate for a race to the bottom, even if the extra bovine funk and lubricating fatty juices from the real deal aren't enough to convince you.

Is it my favourite burger in Bristol? Not quite, although I will happily return to try more of the menu in order to confirm my early judgement. At the moment, I find it hard to look past Fat Dad's. But, as will be demonstrated in The Bristol Sauce this month by much better writers than me, that's the beauty of the one good thing to come out of America*; there's a burger for everyone. Except those of you who order halloumi burgers. There's no place for you.

All words and photos by PXandTarts

Popti Bros, 96 Mina Road, St Werburgh's, BS2 9XW

*Except for Harriet, who we love dearly.

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