I decided to try Gordon Ramsay BurGR during my last visit to Vegas on the recommendation of a friend who had liked the burgers here a lot. I went with my cousin who wanted to grab a quick bite to eat as he had some work to attend to so we asked the hostess if we could skip the line and sit at the bar. Well that's not possible. You have to get in line to get in. Period. My cousin took off but I decided to duke it out. At around noon there was a decent line that took about 20 minutes to burn. When I was up the hostess tried to stick me to the bar seeing that I was single but I insisted on a table which she grudgingly provided after fidgeting around for a couple of minutes.
Well some decisions are just bad and this one of getting a table at Gordon Ramsay BurGR falls into that category. The tables are low and the chairs are not proportional to the height of the table so you end up sitting very uncomfortably low at the table. Anyway I was helped by a server who seemed to be clueless on the menu or at-least that was my take on her after sampling the food. I decided to get a burger and asked for a recommendation. I was told that the Euro Burger ($16) would be the one with the best taste and flavor profile whereas the Hell's Kitchen and the Earth Burger were their top sellers. I am a flavor over popularity type of guy so I decide to get the Euro Burger. Then I ask for a recommendation on the shakes and I'm told that the #5 ($9) would be the way to go. I see that this has the praline cookie so I ask if this would be overly sweet. I'm told that all their shakes are sweet so if I'm not keen on sweet I should avoid the shakes. What? This was a first. I actually found a server in America that advised against ordering something off the menu (thereby reducing the check and related tip). I have no problem with sweet, in-fact I like sweet so I got a #5. Ten minutes later the food is on the table.
Let's start with the burger. The Euro Burger comes with truffle aioli, goat cheese, arugula and oven roasted tomatoes. The good news was that the buns had a decent bounce and the meat was a perfect medium. The bad news was that it had absolutely no flavor. I mean it was tasteless. I wish I could at-least taste the beef but even that was missing. The arugula did not add any crunch to the burger. Texturally it was as monotonous as its taste. A little more seasoning, a generous amount of truffle oil mixed into the mayo and some olive oil on the goat cheese would have elevated this perfectly executed failed recipe. Moving on to the shake. It was like a day and night comparison with the burger. The #5 comes with chocolate hazelnut pudding on top of a coffee shake with a praline cookie sticking out on the top. I took a large sip expecting a huge sugar rush but that was not the case. It was a perfectly balanced coffee shake which was in-fact a little less sweet but terrific. The pudding was the bomb. The worst thing was the praline cookie which was worse that supermarket quality cookies. Overall the shake was very good. It was unique. It is what you would expect from a chef like Gordon Ramsay. It is what would get you to stand 20 minutes in line to get in. The burger not so much. Chomping down tasteless calories is not my style.
After completing my burger and shake I concluded that my server was clueless. Both her recommendations were wrong. I doubt that she had tasted anything off the menu so my request to anyone from this restaurant that is reading this review is to get their servers to taste their entire menu so that they don't give wrong recommendations.
Overall I was not impressed with Gordon Ramsay BurGR and feel that it barely made the A-OK grade. This is yet another place on the strip from a TV based super star chef that does not live up to its hype in my opinion. I doubt that I will return for their burgers but if there is a small line I may stick it out for another go at their shakes. One last piece of advise would be to spilt the shake between two people rather than ordering one each as it is really heavy even though it does not look too big.