Burger restaurants get a grilling about serving rare meat

Ordering a burger used to be a simple affair, but it got more complicated when ‘gourmet burgers’ started to appear on menus. And now, the HSE has asked a Dublin restaurant to stop serving undercooked mince

‘AND HOW WOULD you like that cooked?” This culinary query became a burning issue this week when it was reported that the Health Service Executive was demanding that a Dublin restaurant stop offering rare or medium-rare burgers.

Jo’burger in Rathmines, Dublin, which opened three years ago, has always offered customers a choice when it comes to how their burgers are cooked, with the medium-rare and rare options proving popular, especially with the weekend trade. The meat in its burgers, sourced from Dublin butcher Pat McLoughlin, is fully traceable. The burgers are shaped by hand on the premises using 100 per cent beef.

“The meat is delivered here fresh every day and made into today’s burgers; that’s the way it works,” says owner Joe Macken. “We’ve been giving customers the option to eat burgers whatever way they choose since we opened, with no issues.”

Macken was always aware of concerns held by some about undercooked mince, and before the HSE’s warning a disclaimer on the menu read: “We will serve your burger as you request it, rare to well-done. Rare and medium burgers are undercooked. Note eating of undercooked or raw meat may lead to food-borne illness.”

The disclaimer didn’t stop an environmental-health officer writing to Macken to demand that he stop offering rare or medium-rare burgers unless he could prove there were no safety issues.

In a statement this week, Macken said he considered this “over-regulation”, but nevertheless Jo’burger has removed its disclaimer and now serves all of its burgers medium to well done. It is fully compliant with the HSE advice.

The HSE warning is based on strict cooking guidelines from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. The rules for burgers differ from those for steak. When meat is minced, its surface, where the E.coli bacterium is typically found, will end up ground through the burger. With steak, however, any surface contamination is killed during cooking.

Here’s how four other restaurants serve their burgers.

Elephant Castle

TEMPLE BAR, DUBLIN

PicturedThe Chargrilled Burger

Since this New York-style restaurant opened, 21 years ago, the beef has been supplied by John Doyle, on nearby Pearse Street. The meat, sourced from cattle on Doyle’s Co Offaly farm, is minced at his premises and delivered to the restaurant in vacuum-sealed bags.

The meat is shaped into burgers at the restaurant and cooked. Nothing is added to the mince, not even salt or pepper. The head chef, Jack Duffy, says customers are asked how they would like their burger cooked, with options including rare, medium-rare and “black and blue”. This is where the burger is seared black on the outside and barely cooked in the middle. Even its medium burger is a robust pink in the middle, and the medium to well-done burger also contains faint traces of pink. “The issue has come up in conversation with the HSE, but they’ve never had a problem with how we serve our burgers,” he says. The restaurant regularly sends samples of its beef in uncooked and variously cooked forms to a lab in Trinity College.

Duffy’s own preference is to have his minced beef rare: “If a good vet can cure it, I will eat it,” he says. “I would eat Irish beef raw in any guise.”

Our verdict Pink, juicy, delicious and still legal.

Eddie Rocket’s

NATIONWIDE

PicturedThe Eddie Rocket's Classic Burger

This American-style diner – yes, the jukeboxes work! – has been serving burgers at all hours around the country for years. The meat is sourced from Robinson Meats and Joe Carey. It is hand-shaped into burgers in each restaurant.

A spokeswoman says the burgers are cooked until the juices run clear, to an internal temperature of 75 degrees, which is what the HSE recommends for products made from minced beef.

Our verdict Packs a punch; a bit thin for some tastes, perhaps.

McDonald’s

NATIONWIDE

PicturedThe Quarter Pounder with Cheese

McDonald’s burgers start out as Irish cows, and the meat is sourced from about 400 Bord Bia-approved farms. But they go on quite a journey before being cooked, sauced, dressed, wrapped and handed to the customer.

The cattle are sent for slaughter to companies such as Kepak and Dawn Meats, in Ireland, before travelling to a facility called OSI Food Solutions, in Scunthorpe in England, to be minced, processed into burgers and flash frozen and returned to Irish franchises.

Back in Ireland the quarter-pounder is cooked for two minutes, compressed between a lower plate that’s at 180 degrees and a top plate that reaches 220 degrees.

Silly-question alert: Can you get a rare or even medium-rare McDonald’s burger? “We don’t do that. They are all cooked to the exact same standard,” says the communications manager, Ray Farrelly.

Our verdict Won’t win any gastronomic awards, but hits the spot.

Gourmet Burger Company

RANELAGH, DUBLIN

PicturedThe Classic Burger

Owner Jonathan Dockrell says warnings like the one issued to Jo’burger are just another example of a burgeoning “nanny state”.

His restaurant used to offer customers the option of medium burgers, served slightly pink, until an environmental-health officer from the HSE objected.

His burgers, which are all now cooked medium-well or well done, come from the Good Herdsmen farm, in Co Tipperary, and are made from organic beef.

“My own personal feeling is that if the beef can be verified and is of good quality, then serving them medium is fine,” he says.

Our verdict One of the best burgers in town. Even if they are no longer pink.