***Update – HBC is no longer Coeliac UK accredited so I’m unsure if they still have a gluten free offer – it’s not clear from the website***

We went to the new Ikea this week, to get some furniture for the boys. Top tip is to go in the evening – around 7pm like we did – and it was super quiet.

In need of food after (and I’m not confident about Ikea’s offering), we went to the Handmade Burger Co at Valley Centertainment, down the road. HBC is a chain gourmet burger restaurant, with about 21 outlets around the country. Being a Tuesday evening, it was very quiet so we got seated and served very quickly. The restaurant itself wasn’t particularly characterful, in a boxy, retail-style unit with cream walls, but we sat in a nice booth and it was perfectly pleasant. It’s more of a ‘quick meal before a film’ place than somewhere to hang out.

Handmade Burger Co is accredited with Coeliac UK so I knew I would be confident eating there. Slogans on the wall are about high welfare meat and hand made food, so that’s all reassuring too. I was given an extensive gluten free menu with loads of different burgers, so it took ages to choose! There are a variety of beef, pork and chicken burgers with numerous toppings, and a thoughtful selection of vegetarian options. I was almost tempted by the sweet potato and bean burger, but I have form for ordering veggie food and being disappointed with it, so I decided to stick with meat. (The GF menu is online here but part of the web address says TEMP, so the link may not work for long. They did say they are updating the menu, so that may explain it.)

One quite unusual thing is that on the GF menu, there’s a junior option, with a burger, side, dessert and drink for £3.95. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a kids’ gluten free menu. I’m not keen on kids’ menus per se, as they’re generally full of bland food, but we usually end up ordering an expensive adult-size GF meal for my 8 year old – so this is very economical, if unhealthy! I’ll have to bring him with us next time…

I ordered the Cajun chicken burger, which contains marinated chicken breast, Cajun mayo, Sriracha mayo, lettuce, tomato & red onion. I really wanted to try the Denver chips, topped with pulled pork, but somebody had cleared them out of pulled pork earlier with a big takeaway order, so I went for the rosemary salt chips instead. Hubby chose the sweet potato fries to go with his (non GF) beef with blue cheese burger.

When my burger came, the bread bun arrived in a plastic wrapper with the stack of chicken, lettuce and tomato by its side. (To be honest, I’d prefer it if the non GF bread was kept in plastic wrappers, as that would be safer for cross contamination!) So I built my own burger, and it was good. The meat was well cooked (chargrilled chicken has a tendency to get overdone, but this wasn’t) and the mayo was suitably spicy. The bread bun held together whilst I ate the burger, which I felt was a success!

We both preferred the sweet potato fries to the chips, as the rosemary salt chips were incredibly salty – as you might expect, I suppose. Having said that, the chips themselves were great, with a good texture. I will have to go back another time to try out those Denver chips, and take the boy.

Handmade Burger Co, Valley Centertainment, Broughton Lane, Sheffield S9 2EP
Also in Meadowhall, in the Oasis