Please tell me where I can find a burger as good as Five Guys for £3 in London.
It's £3? Including sales tax? That's pretty nuts. I figured it'd be more like £5-6.
Meatliquor is what, £7? To be honest, I wouldn't ever be eating burgers
that regularly, and I think to most people £7.50 is pretty acceptable. To be honest I'd very much doubt you could assemble a decent burger for under £5-6 in London without serious corner cutting, I'm surprised they can go that low in NYC.
Having said that, you're right on your other point, places like meatliquor, pittcueco are few and far between at the moment. It is changing though. Look how many smaller, pop-up type restaurants have been appearing in London doing great food for low prices. It's not up there with New York yet, but give it 1-2 years and I think there will be even more competition in London.
I actually think London's main problem is at the very high end. For starters, there's nowhere in London that comes close to any of the decent NYC sushi places - or at least if there is, I've not heard of it. The good news on that front is that one of the top sushi chef's in Japan (which I guess means the world) is looking at opening in London in 2013. I imagine it will be stupidly expensive but at least it's an option.
There's also nowhere in London that can compare to places Per Se or Eleven Madison Park (imo). Closest I've come to either is probably the Ledbury. It might be because there isn't the market for it though - there's not many places popping up that seem to be aiming for that level nowadays and prefer to go down the more casual route, which is cool, but when you want something really special it's good to have choice.