Goodbgr, Albany Road, Cardiff: review

Owners Waz and Taz are an engaging double act: they might sound like your children’s favourite TV presenters, but despite the affable welcome they are obviously serious about what Goodbgr does. Cardiff hospitality veterans with longstanding ties to the area- they went to primary school close by- theirs is a dyed in the wool local independent, even though it feels chain-slick.

It’s all black paint and pale wood, with a graffiti mural taking up one wall. The unloved interior of the former takeaway has been given a buzzy facelift, though I’m less impressed by my daughter’s comment ‘Oh look, daddy- you’re famous!’ when she sees the mural on her first visit.

I make a mental note: birthday wishlists can be downgraded, after all. There’s no garden but a huge bifold window means the warmer weather will make this small room seem far more open to Albany Road.

The corner cabinet above the counter is full of chocolate, a clue to their range of milkshakes. There must be about thirty single varieties here: start combining them and you’d have… lots.

Initial impressions, then. A short menu? Good. Five beef, four chicken, with the meat-free choices mimicking the former. They don’t look overburdened, either: no ocelot sweetbreads, no pulled dodo or any other over-elaboration that snares many.

I don’t go for the ‘Bad and Boujee’ chicken, although it’s good of them to name it after me. ‘Simples’ will do just fine for a first look. (And no, they didn’t name that one after me.) The menu says breast: what arrives- and is standard, I’m told- is a hulking great brute of a thigh, buttermilk-bathed before being pounded out to a manageable girth. It’s still hefty enough that it should be lycra-clad and pistoning its way across Roubaix cobbles or making a break for the Champs-Élysées finish line, mind.

That coating is bronzed and frilled, properly seasoned and crisp: in short, the sort of thing you get not from a wet batter but a mix of flours. It’s reminiscent of the still-missed Chronic: you should know that’s a compliment.

The bread- a glossy, seeded brioche- more than holds its own. Baking locally daily, rather than buying cheaper frozen versions, makes a difference, though it adds to their costs. Ditto the fries: bought in, but obviously from the better end of the frozen spectrum. Onion rings are reassuringly irregular, ungreasy, with mac and cheese balls hitting the same brief. They make their sauces, daily, too: from garlic and Parmesan to Ranch they’re rather good, with honey mustard a particularly good chip-dipper. Goodbgr: short on vowels, long on detail.

The beef looks good. That matters: these have been designed with you in mind, not the EgoGram. You know that sigh before you have to start taking them apart to make them manageable? No need for that here. The burgers here hit that sweet spot. (There’s a piece to be written about short chefs pushing over-tall burgers. Game’s up, fellas: it should be all about what it’s like for us to eat, not your overcompensation issues).

‘Origin’ is your classic onion, ketchup, mustard and cheese. The ‘Smokey’ doesn’t do much to the basic template except add a proper slather of tangy barbecue sauce that stays on the right side of sweet. Goodbgr understands the wisdom of restraint.

Crucially, it’s got what feels like a good ratio of fat to meat (chuck and brisket), which is what you get from intensive working with a local butcher until you’re happy with your mix. What you get is a hefty, messy, oozy, double handful.

But that’s enough about me, ladies (…a quick pause as you have those aching sides massaged back to comfort… Ready? Shall we continue..? .Marvellous.)

There’s nothing here to advertise Goodbgr’s halal credentials. A friend who tells how good it is here is mystified (‘I’ve heard it’s halal but I had bacon on mine… I’m confused..’) It turns out to be some of the better turkey bacon you’ll find, thick-cut and lightly smoky, and buried within the burger it’s easily mistaken.

So the temptation here- the trap, even- would be to discuss Goodbgr solely as the latest halal burger brand in the area. There’s an ample meaty local market here, with a halal butcher opposite, Makhalal and Fat Twins burgers moments away, and Slamburger and Steak Out round the corner, let alone Chai Green’s curries and the current Iftari specials of City Road. This should be a fertile patch for them; but that would be to diminish its place in the overall discussion of the best local burgers overall.

This is a menu which demands to be taken seriously: with Hench at The Royal Oak, another recent discovery reviewed here, the CF24 burger game is in rude health. There’s much to enjoy here. At the most testing of times, let’s take a monent to appreciate the birth of another locally-owned business which, happily, has the sense to focus on the essentials, and to get those basics absolutely right.

Goodbgr, 163 Albany Rd, Cardiff CF24 3NT

5-10pm, 7 days a week