As part of the Burger Trail, we are travelling around the world looking for the absolute best burger. We were recently on a trip to Wakefield for a wedding and the day after the wedding, we decided to kick off the Burger Trail and find the first contender for the Burger Trail. We needed to find out some places to eat in Wakefield.
So after asking at the hotel for recommendations on where to eat in Wakefield, we decided to jump over to Trip Advisor and see if there was a place that stood out to us. As I’m sure you can imagine, there are always loads of restaurants on Trip Advisor, so how do you decide where to go and what to try out? Well there is no science to it, it is all down to the reviews it has received, we always look at the last 10 reviews to see if a place is worth going to, Bear Kitchen had some great reviews, so we thought we would give it a try.
Location
Although the location of Bear Kitchen is not in the centre of town, actually it is off the beaten track a little, this is a proper hidden gem and not where you would expect to find a restaurant of this quality, you could be mistaken as to where it is and miss it. Having said that, we’re really glad it wasn’t in the middle of town, so we were able to get in and try the food.
If you want to find great Wakefield restaurants and great places to eat in Wakefield, then you have to check out the Bear Kitchen for yourself, here is a map so you can go and check them out, we certainly recommend it.
Menu
Now this isn’t your traditional burger joint, it is something very different. Firstly this is more of a build your burger, you have to pick if you want beef, chicken or a vegetarian option, then the toppings and finally the sides. Of course you can have something else from the menu, they have footlong deli subs, sides and more, check out their menu for ideas of what the menu includes, oh and they have weekly specials which you can find at Bear Kitchen!!
Food
Bear Burger with the Mountie
Right, as this is the Burger Trail, I best get talking about the burger that I ordered on our visit to Bear Kitchen. I had the Bear Burger with the Mountie topping. With the names of the burger it doesn’t really explain much, I had a double beef burger with maple glazed bacon, mozzarella & Bear Ketchup, this came in a poppy seed topped bun. The only word that I can use to describe the burger was WOW. This was one of the nicest burgers that I have ever eaten. You can tell that the burger was not a processed burger, it was a well seasoned and cooked perfectly. The meat was packed with that much flavour, you could have had the burger without any toppings and it would have still been a fantastic burger.
The bun was toasted, had bear sauce, which I have no idea what that was, just it was so tasty. Now was a burger that I had no choice but to deconstruct because I couldn’t fit my mouth around it. Every single part of the burger and topping was nothing short of perfection.
Philly Cheese Steak Deli Sub
Louis had the Philly Cheese Steak Deli Sub and it was a footlong. The Philly Cheese Steak was packed full of shredded slow cooked beef steak, green peppers, fried onions and topped with cheese, the sub itself was soft and the perfect accompaniment for the Philly Cheese Steak. The steak was packed full of flavour, cooked very well and so juicy, you need to have a napkin on hand.
Dirty Fries and Onion Ring
We both decided to have a couple of sides, first we had to decide on the size, lite, hungry or sharing, we decided to go for a hungry size on both, as we were unsure as to the actual size of what would come out. The fries are skinny fries and sprinkled with herbs, we also had the fries topped with Bear Knuckle. Bear Knuckle is actually super beefy onions & Swiss cheese. I have to say that this topping is so much more than that, it is perfectly cooked onions in a beefy gravy, the gravy has been made with the beef knuckle so you get bits of beef in the gravy and then topped with cheese, we thought they were the perfect sides for the burger and sub. The onion rings, these were not your wimpy battered onion rings, far from it, they have certainly come for the huge Spanish onions, cooked until crispy, again another perfect side.
FairTrade, Eco-Friendly and Sustainable Restaurant
Now one thing that the Bear Kitchen is doing above any other restaurant or takeaway is firstly everything that is on the menu is made in house (apart from the rolls and subs), so everything that’s going into the food is 100% good quality and as fresh as possible. By making everything in house, it means that the Bear Kitchen can put their own twist on classic food staples to make it awesome.
Aside from the food, they have a great selection of drinks, but these are not your run of the mill cola and lemonade, in fact, they don’t have the standard brands of soft drinks at all, their drinks are all FairTrade. We had a couple of FairTrade Ubuntu Cola’s.
Now we move onto the packaging and and containers of the food, if you are having any food or drinks to take away, then the food containers are made from either a plant based or sugar based material, the straws a paper, so it can all be biodegraded, so no plastics, no problems recycling, making the Bear Kitchen that bit more special in what they do. To top it off, the restaurant is powered by 100% renewable energy and they have a certificate to prove it.
The Restaurant
The Bear Kitchen restaurant in Wakefield is not the biggest of places at all, in actual fact, they have 3 tables, each sitting 4 people. Even through the restaurant is small, it has a great atmosphere, well decorated with bear pictures, bear ornaments and clean eating cook books, it made the restaurant feel welcoming and homely. The toilets were clean and very well stocked up on loo roll!!
The Staff
As this was our first time at the Bear Kitchen, we were greeted by a very happy server, who welcomed us into the restaurant, asked if it was our first time, when we said yes, she explained how it all worked, showed us the menu and had that much passion, we thought she was the owner. Once we ordered, the server talked with us loads, telling us about the restaurant, why it started, about Ben the owner and why it was called Bear Kitchen. It was great to experience customer service like that. Ben the owner who is also the chef, also came out from the back once we started eaten our food, just to make sure that we were happy with the food.
Prices
So you may be wondering what the prices are like, we have put in what we had as a whole and what we paid:
1 footlong deli Philly Cheese Steak, 1 Bear Burger with the Mountie topping, Hungry Onion Rings, Hungry Skinny Fries with bear knuckle, 2 Ubuntu Cola’s and 1 Chocolate Brownie Milkshake. This all came in at a very reasonable £28.50!! We have both been to chain restaurants and had to pay more money for less.
Conclusion
Overall we really loved our visit to the Bear Kitchen in Wakefield, we would certainly come back for something else from the menu the next time we are up in this area. We would have to say that this is for sure one of the best burger restaurants in Wakefield that we have ever been to and we know that it is going to be hard to have this one topped. If you are looking for places to eat in Wakefield, you need to give this place a try!!
If you are wondering how we would rate the Bear Kitchen in Wakefield, well we can only give it one rating and that’s 5 out of 5 Cub Paws.
