St David’s, Cardiff.
01923 555173 / www.shakeshack.com
Recently Cardiff seems to have experienced a great flood of sorts. A Biblical scale of burger joints have popped up or expanded in the city, leaving foodies wondering why we’ve got so many American style burger restaurants, and not even a sniff of an Ethiopian, Vietnamese or Peruvian restaurant. Don’t get me wrong: I love a good burger, and Shake Shack certainly offer those.
I digress. Despite being busy, when I entered Shake Shack I was hastily seen to and my order had been taken very quickly. Almost instantly, I noticed they featured local beers, and the chain seemed to have adapted well to the city, with many a stylised draig goch adorning its walls. I started out with a gloriously greasy SmokeShack burger, which was a brilliant but guilty affair, holding up well to rivals Five Guys. This was followed by cheese fries, which as expected were, well, very cheesy. Not a lot could go wrong there then.
After this it was time for one of their shakes, which as their restaurant was named after them, must have been good. But seeing as it wasn’t a literal shack, and actually a nice, warm and friendly restaurant, were their shakes even shakes? The answer is yes. Yes, they were shakes and my peanut butter (why is it always peanut butter flavour and not peanut flavour?) shake was delicious as expected, and thankfully I didn’t get a brain freeze.
Shake Shack is a welcome addition to St David’s Centre and provides a place for hangry shoppers to be kept from attacking each other, but I can’t help but crave a little more of an adventurous flavour in Cardiff’s food scene.
LUKE OWAIN BOULT