Randomness Guide to London - Differences between Version 7 and Version 6 of Byron, W12 7GF

Burger restaurant on the top floor of the Westfield Shopping Centre food court (alongside Nando's and Pizza Express), part of a small chain.

Byron serves hamburgers, salads, desserts, and little else. They pride themselves on making the burgers fresh each morning from Scottish beef, and thus assured of the meat's quality cook them to medium by default.

Billy visited on a Friday evening in November 2009. Arriving at 7pm, I had no trouble getting a table for two to myself. I went for a double cheeseburger, and ended up removing the second burger to eat with a knife and fork. The burgers were quite good — large, meaty and tasty, with enough fat to keep them moist and good seasoning. Skin-on chips were a bit anaemic, although otherwise tasty.

As of November 2009, burgers start at £7 for the plain classic burger in a bun with lettuce, tomato, red onion and mayo, with an extra patty costing £3.50 and extra toppings (including the "Byron Sauce") at £1.25-£1.50. The menu lists a number of combos which are slightly cheaper than adding the toppings separately. Salads range from £3 to £10, covering plain house offerings as well as chicken caesars and cobb salads. Sides include skin-on chips, macaroni cheese, and courgette fries. Desserts (including ice cream and cakes) are around £4.50. Drinkwise, they serve wine and bottled beer (including Brooklyn lager, Sierra Nevada and Dos Equis), as well as juices and milkshakes.

This branch is vaguely confusing if you walk up the stairs rather than using the escalator as there is a "wait to be seated" sign and a group of maitre d's, but they are on the opposite side of the restaurant to the stairs — due to the open nature of the food court layout, people often wander in and grab tables only to be approached by the staff shortly after. They have a number of booths in addition to tables and a bar wrapped around the open kitchen.

The menu evolves over time and they seem to listen to customer feedback. They like to get foodbloggers and twittery people involved when they can (Billy heard about it via twitter, tweeted that he'd been and got a reply from the official twitter account) and have suggestion forms on the tables that anecdotal evidence suggests they pay attention to.

The restaurant, like most of Westfield, has step-free access via lifts and there is a bathroom on the same floor.

See also:

• Bellaphon's review
• Food Fight review
• London Eating comments

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