RESTAURANT REVIEW: GRIZZLERS

Yoooo so you may have heard a lot of gas talk about a new place called Grizzlers. From what I can work out Grizzlers is an independent restaurant, there are no other branches. They serve gourmet burgers, pizzas and peri peri chicken. Me and Nico went down to see what the hype was about and take some photos for you lucky sods.

*Note: I've chose to discard the previous points scoring system I employed whilst writing these restaurant reviews. It's kind of hard to judge all eating establishments by the same criteria when some are chicken shops, some are chain restaurants and some are stand alone independent traders. Also, I scored a couple pretty average places pretty high a few years ago so it never left me much wriggle room haha

NAME: GRIZZLERS

LOCATION: 95 HUMBERSTONE GATE, LEICESTER, LE1 1WB

DECOR: It was nice for what it was. There's a big open brand new kitchen, and then it's glass fronted with massive wooden panels and tables. Inside it's not much of a 'restaurant', it's a takeaway place really, but for what it's worth they've done a nice job inside. It's small, probably seats about 20 people max but we got a table, no problem.

PRICE: The prices were pretty good! The gourmet burgers were about £6, meals slightly more. Pizzas £3/4 pounds and then all the little sides stuff are a couple of quid. Me and Nico both proper went for it and ended up doing about £11 each. For what it is, the prices are really good.

FOOD: The food was very, very good. The burgers were really juicy and satisfying. They didn't taste dry and bland at all. I had the 'Juicy Lucy' - 'Two patties with molten cheese (gouda/swiss) in the middle, Grizzler's house mayo & relish, caramelised onions & gherkins'. I'm about 90% sure there was no relish on my burger. Nico went for the 'Silly Billy' - '6oz patty, peanut butter & hot banana drizzled in honey'. I was watching the blokes make the burgers and they were really taking their time with them, taking pride in what they did. The chicken was thick and tender and really nicely marinated. The chips were really average but in a world where sauce has been invented I can live with that. They had the regular assortment of chilli sauce and garlic mayo on every table. I just matched Nico and ordered an Oreo milkshake, and regretfully didn't order a glass of the homemade lemonade. The next table ordered some and they looked sublime. Next time. Also it must be noted that they didn't have any pizzas in, disappointing.

An extremely underwhelming photo of the 'Juicy Lucy'

Nico's 'Silly Billy'

ATMOSPHERE: So hard to judge in these kind of places. There was no real atmosphere, because like I said, it seemed like more of a takeout place. There was music on quietly and everyone was just going about their food. The way the tables are laid out is pretty cool though, like you aren't right on top of anyone, so I guess that was definitely a plus.

Oreo milkshakes. These were really nice.

My 'Juicy Lucy'. See the cheese in-between the two patties

SERVICE: The service was a good laugh. The main guy was a funny one, we were faffing a bit when he took our order and I couldn't tell if we'd pissed him off. But despite our indecisiveness he nailed it and got our order 100% right, which shouldn't be, but is almost a novelty these days. They didn't take card payments either, so we had to leave to go to a cash point, which was only across the road but it is January in England. At the end I had 2 chicken strips left that I wanted to takeaway and I needed a box. The guy made me wait soooo long, clearly forget about me haha. In all it was fine, clinical and with absolutely no personal touch. When you consider I was there to eat and not to make friends that is fine.

Nico's 'Silly Billy' cross section

CONCLUSION: In conclusion it's pretty cool. Everything we had was really delicious, I'm already planning my next visit and what I'm going to have next time. They've set up really well with strong social media (check their awesome instagram for more photos) and it looks like business is booming. People were in and out the whole time we were there. My criticisms would be that the burgers don't quite look in real life the way they do in their own pictures, and the fact they didn't have any pizzas was very annoying. Hopefully that'll be different next time I go, but given the burgers are their bread and butter I was very, very impressed with the one I had. I'd say believe the hype, it's really good, and Grizzlers is a welcome edition to the ever expanding gourmet burger trend in Leicester. I'm really looking forward to going back.