Artisan

I called Artisan in the morning to check whether they were busy or I could just walk in. And a good job I did, too, as I was able to book their last table for lunch.

Artisan’s offering is the High-5 Sliders – 5 mini burgers with various fillings as follows: hot-smoked salmon and horseradish; chicken confit; duck and pulled pork; venison and blue cheese; and a “pudding” burger of chocolate mousse in a  doughnut bun.

Why High 5? Well, they’re served on a platter that’s like a small tree:

Does this work? As a concept, it sounds fine. However, only one of the burgers was an actual patty  – the venison burger – which was a bit of a disappointment. The others were either a pâté (salmon and chicken), which had a tendency to shoot out from the burger once you squeezed it together to get a bite out of it; or just meat (the duck/pork combo). Also, the bread/filling ratio wasn’t optimal – although the buns were varied (one with herbs, another with walnuts, a corn bread and a brown bread) the whole meal was a bit too bready. The pudding burger suffered from the same squirt-out-the-sides problem as the chicken and salmon ones.

Accompanying all this was a glass of Parrotdog’s DeadCanary – another Wellington brewery who make a good range of beers. This is a pale ale style beer.

Overall, this looked good on paper, and even on a wooden serving tray…but failed to deliver on taste. Scoring? Not a high 5, but a low 5 from me.