There are those times when the weekend is at your doorstep and you feel like celebrating with a sophisticated, elegant and refined dinner. Maybe something French, to make up for all the stress and intensity of the week gone by. When we think of French food, we envision luxury white tablecloth restaurants and patisseries with pyramids of macarons. But when the French cook at home, they tend to go for simple, comfort food. So why not a suave gourmet burger inspired by French gusto that is full of flavour and chic?
Today we’re heading to upper-class Swieqi, at The Greenhouse bistro. The burger speciality that triumphantly depicts the same name as the bistro was devised by executive chef Davide Giorgione. It’s made from a 250gr patty of Scotch Angus beef, sauteed mushrooms, white truffle sauce and goat cheese. Et voila le jeux sont fait!
Rumen is managing the kitchen area today. He hails from Bulgaria and settled in Malta 9 years ago. We’ve seen Rumen’s work in various top restaurants in the past, so it’s always a pleasure to know that your burger is being handled by someone who lives and breaths cuisine. The burger is enveloped in a bun made by the in-house bakery. The bun is toasted to bring a little contrast to the pillowy soft texture. It has a great springiness and suppleness to it and stays moist until the very last bite. The bun halves are abundantly spread with a mayo and white truffle sauce, a creamy blend with a delicate aroma. Crispy lettuce and 2 slices of tomato form a vegetable bed for the piece de resistance, a Scotch beef patty made from ribeye and cube roll cuts. This beef, sourced from the infamous Scotch Angus cows is firm yet tender, lean and juicy. In Scotland, Angus bulls are customly crossed with other cattle breeds, producing a nice marbled meat, full of flavour, which intrinsically ends up in our patty. This especially shows off through the moist and juicy insides of the patty, and the crisp and charred beef-fatty outsides. It’s exceptionally tasty as well. This meatfull patty is thick, dense and well-seasoned, just as we like them!
The mushrooms are sauteed in butter together with onions, and white truffles added to the mix. Because of the sheer amount of fragrant truffle used, you can smell truffle before the burger hits the table. A small hill of these flavourful mushrooms goes on top of the patty. These are cleverly sealed with perfectly melted goat cheese, creating a feathery white dome, and keeping the truffle-infused mushrooms safe in place until they land in your mouth! There’s some good burger architecture going on here, with no mushroom spill guaranteed! There’s almost as much goat cheese as there is patty, and that is brilliant. This definitely enhanced the whole burger experience as the goat cheese imparts the burger with a salty and slightly tangy taste in every bite, and together with the earthy vibes that come from the truffles and mushrooms, they elevate this burger tenfold. The burger creation is finished off with 3 crispy onion rings on top.
There’s much to like about the angelic ingredients that make up this burger. There’s something fantastique about the combination of barnyard goat cheese and earthy, woody truffles, making this burger so rich that it laughs in the face of its gold-leaf adorned variants. The fusion of tangy goat cheese and mushrooms is fresh, glowing and much decadent! There’s no doubt, whether you like French cuisine or not, this is one of those rare burgers you ought to try today before tomorrow.
Davide Giorgione, who’s also a renown pastry chef has also come up with an Oreo flavoured Tiramisu. How can we say no to this? This dessert of Italian origins is fluffy, sweet, and made from layers of creamy mascarpone cheese and strong cocoa…. and of course, crushed Oreos! The Greenhouse have sprung to the top of the desserts game and are killing it big time here. No visit should go by without devouring one of their desserts.
