The Travel Critic

So this was a little hello and goodbye sort of lunch. Hello to Prime, Pasture’s buzzy burger offshoot in Bristol. Goodbye to a wonderful colleague, though I won’t dwell on that part, mainly as there was a moment — as I was leaning in to the milkshake like a man doing something dirty in a Travelodge — when I was asked, in the gentle but unmistakable tone: “Do you think you should be having both a burger and a milkshake?”

And the answer, dear reader, is: no.

But I did.

And I’d do it again.

Because Prime is bloody excellent.

Now I’m not one for banging on about burgers. Too many places doing “the best burger ever” and it’s always a half-cooked meatloaf in a cake bun with three sauces and a whole softshell crab on top for some godforsaken reason. If you’re going to do something this basic, it needs to be either very cheap, very weird, or very, very good.

Prime, I’m pleased to say, is very, very good.

From the outside it’s all meat-sweat sleek and softly masculine — wood, steel, fire — like a really lovely butcher’s shop if the butcher was also a Michelin-starred pyromaniac. It feels serious. But the service was warm, the music was up, and the staff were that rare mix of properly informed and clearly a bit in love with the food. You don’t always get that in the burger trade.

Now, the burger. You get a choice: thick and pink, or two smashed patties. I chose thick and pink — partly because I’m a hopeless romantic and partly because if you’re doing just one patty, it had better be good. And Christ, it was.

I had the American Style House: onions, beef fat garlic cheese, mayo. All present, all correct, all blending into something that dripped down my wrist and made me feel genuinely excited to be alive. The beef was soft and perfectly seasoned, the bun was sweet and soft like a posh brioche but sturdier, like it’d hold its own in a bar fight. Nothing clever, nothing fancy, just ridiculously well done.

And the milkshake. Salted caramel. Thick enough to dislocate a jaw, but I’d take a sports injury for it. Velvety, rich, sweet-salty heaven. I’d return just for this, if only to sip it slowly while trying not to think about the mirror in the changing room at Zara.

That was it. No starters, no sides, no faff. Just two things. Burger. Shake. Both 10/10, no notes. And you know what that means? It means this place knows exactly what it’s doing. No overreach, no bells and whistles. Just craft.

So yes, I’ll go back. I’ll recommend it. I’ll probably dream about it in a feverish meat-sweat haze. Prime is a belting little hello to Bristol’s food scene — and if, as they say, all goodbyes come with a silver lining, this one came with beef fat cheese and a salted caramel shake.

I can live with that.