Teddy Brown

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🍔 Hamburger / 📍 Hiroo

📓 Visits: 1

Hamburger joints are a dime a dozen in Japan and most of them are not very good.  Teddy Brown opened last week (3rd April 2025) and is at least the fifteenth new hamburger restaurant to open in Tokyo so far this year.  But it's not every day or even every month that a hamburger restaurant opens to a procession of orchids sent from some of the top restaurants in the country, including Narisawa, Akasaka Raimon and La Casa Di Tetsuo Ota.  The restaurant is owned by Oya Co. Ltd, who own the yakiniku chain Beef Kitchen.  Well we've been here before: a burger restaurant that's a sister store to a yakiniku restaurant and it didn't end well.

I chose the Teddy Bacon Burger with large fries.  The burgers are cooked to order and the food arrived in about 12 minutes.

The name of the restaurant befits the colour of the food: cooked a little longer than at most places to maximise the umami.  It's supposedly a smash burger but the 190g coarsely-ground 100% wagyu patty is quite thick and ends up being medium-well in the centre.  The meat itself is quite lean so arguably a little dry.  Moisture comes from roasted cherry tomato and the best (though it's a desperately low bar) scrambled egg I've ever had in Tokyo.  The bun is great: chewy, tasty, perfectly toasted and made from Hokkaido flour and Japanese sugar for sweetness.  The thick-ish, sweet, smokey bacon was also delicious.  There were two tiny pieces of gristle, any more than that my opinion might change.  Potatoes are served two ways: wedges and shredded skin-on fries, the fries being crispy and full of flavour.  Some condiments would not go amiss: the wedges were underseasoned relative to the fries and I wanted vinegar, ketchup and maybe mustard.  But overall I was very happy and will go back.  It's reasonably priced, there's no "one person one drink" rule and staff are attentive and enthusiastic.

Busyness is not a marker of quality and walk around Tokyo on a weekend and you can find queues outside many decidedly average hamburger restaurants so don't be fooled.  So given the location and the owner's connections I'd expect them to do very well.  Also take hamburger recommendations from anyone with a pinch of salt because everyone has their own opinion on what makes a great burger.  But for me this is the best addition to Tokyo's saturated hamburger scene since Bakery & Burger JB's Tokyo.  Let's hope they can keep the consistency.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130703/13307639/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0

📱 Booking: No bookings.  Expect to queue at the weekend so go on a weekday evening.  English menu.  No English spoken on my visit.

📍 Location: 

5-1-18 Hiroo.  Just off the Hiroo shotengai, adjacent to Homeworks.  2 mins walk from Hiroo Station.

Map data ©2024 Google

📅 Visit April 2024

Teddy Bacon Burger 1900
+large fries +330

💴 Damage: 2,230 + 104% tariff

⏱️ Time taken: 35m