Marlowe's Burgers at The World's End, Brighton

Marlowe's Burger's has come to BN1 after a fairly swift expansion, initially setting up in Tunbridge Wells, before expanding to sites in Bromley, Seven Oaks and Clapham.They've made a smart choice in setting up shop at The World's End on London Road, a fun, slightly ruff n ready boozer (in the nicest possible way) which for a while was synonymous with burgers and elite barbecue as the home of the near-legendary Barbecue Shack (ask Jay Rayner).Marlowe’s Burgers, which kicked off their tenure at The World’s End at the end of last month, are confident about their sustainability credentials.

Their burgers come solely from Aubrey Allen, an award-winning butcher with a reputation for ethically sourced, naturally produced meat, and favoured by no less customers than Raymond Blanc and Heston Blumenthal.

Marlowe’s are understandably keen to show off about the fact the burgers are made from grass-fed beef which has undergone a flavour enhancing dry-ageing process before being minced, and pressed into patties, and delivered fresh to each Marlowe’s kitchen (another one of their selling points is that the meat is ‘never frozen.’)

We visited in the second weekend of trading and found the reality was just as good as the aforementioned narrative.

Firstly it was great to be back in The World’s End, a comfortable, unpretentious sort of place that lends itself to comfortable, unpretentious tucker.

There, mercifully, haven’t been too many changes to the venue since my last visit a few years back, it still has plenty of arcade games (though no longer the VR variety), is student-friendly and proudly wears it’s pro-diversity ethos.

We rocked up relatively early on a Saturday lunchtime, as town was beginning to fill up with questionably-attired but very excitable Hen do’s, and Albion fans enjoying some refreshing strong lagers ahead of the bank holiday tonking at the fee of the Mighty Arsenal.

The World’s End was waking up with some reassuringly old-skool Hip Hop, and we took a window seat to gaze at the never-dull parade of interesting characters wandering up and down London Road (Lou Reed would have written a song about it given half the chance).

Our burgers arrived pretty niftily, and being dyed-in-the wool old middle-aged carnivore dinosaurs we both chose the meat options (if it’s good enough for Heston and Raymond etc), but there is a strong veg and vegan option in the shape of Moving Mountains plant-based burgers

I chose the curiously named Yeah Lovely burger a familiar combination of a double 3oz beef burger, double American cheese, pickles, Marlowe’s sauce, smoked streaky bacon (which as our photo shows was poking cheekily out of the potato bun).

Fortunately they’re MUCH better making burgers than they are naming them. It was nicely charred and juicy, and the fact it had been pre-shaped into a patty makes for a slightly more robust texture than smashed variants.

The mysterious Marlowe’s sauce had the appearance of a trad burger sauce but it was fairly smoky (perhaps some paprika) and had an interesting tang to it, and I wondered if perhaps some sun-dried toms had been involved somewhere along the way.

My dining buddy chose the Maj (who knows?) which was a less traditionally US-styled with the bite of double extra mature Cheddar, soothed by very sweet caramelised onions, and extra crunch from a smattering of crispy onions

The Marlowe's branding states 'Real burgers, that's it' but they’re selling themselves a bit short because there’s more to be had than just their spiffing burgers.

Perhaps we can take fries for granted, but their fat skin on fries with rosemary salt, were remarkably fat, golden and crispy and deserve a mention of their own.

But there’s also options for loaded fries, including Parmesan and bacon, and meaty or veggie chilli. We went carne again and enjoyed the punchy peppery chilli addition to those excellent chippies.

We also tried a small portion of chicken tenders. The chicken breast had presumably been soaked in buttermilk before being crispy fried, and very much deserved the tender epithet.

The food is also available for takeaway on Deliveroo and Uber Eats, and both feature beers from Laine Brew Co the popular Brighton craft brewery behind The World’s End.