Meet two best friends who made Liverpool’s bestseller bun in honour of their food idol

Two best friends who launched Burner in Sub Rosa have made Liverpool’s bestseller bun in honour of their food idol.

Alison Lockett-Burke and Lou Rossi, who both live in south Liverpool, launched Burner at Sub Rosa in the Baltic at the start of the outdoor season.

Their plan was to turn a tiny shipping container into a pop-up with a weekly-changing menu of buns, chips and dips, flavoured and loaded fries, with the emphasis on quality locally-supplied ingredients.

Since then they’ve served everything from pork, fennel and chilli meatballs in a bun with mozzarella and salsa verde for Italian week to garam masala fries in Bombay week.

But it’s been their speciality bun, named after legendary American chef Anthony Bourdain, that’s been the stand-out bestseller.

Fans who’ve spotted it on social media travel miles to try what Alison and Lou describe as “basically the best ham and cheese toastie you’ll ever eat.”

In fact, the gourmet Bourdain bun is far from a regular toastie – it’s packed with layer on layer of crispy grilled Italian mortadella and melted provolone all stacked onto a big sesame bun from Liverpool’s Plattsville Bakehouse.

The combination was, say the friends, Bourdain’s favourite hangover cure so once they’d decided to open Burner they knew they had to include it.

Alison, who lives in Aigburth, explains: “Me and Lou are both slightly obsessed with Anthony Bourdain. We were camping together last summer and went to do a big food shop. We’d both read about his perfect hangover cure so we thought we’d get the ingredients to make it. 

“We bought lots of mortadella, they didn’t have provolone in the supermarket in Wales so we improvised, and we sat outside in the rain and made this Bourdain bun. It’s six layers of mortadella ham with a layer of provolone cheese in between. We cook it in two piles on our hot flatbed griddle, flipped so they get crispy on each edge and all the cheese melts inside, then stacked up on a sesame bun with Japanese kewpie mayo and Dijon.

“It’s like our little tribute to Anthony Bourdain, and it’s quite a simple sandwich but even people who don’t know him come specifically for it week after week. They say they’ve been desperate to try it because they’ve seen it on Instagram or TikTok and when they do, they love it.”

For Alison and Lou it’s been a highlight of a very busy summer already.

They only decided to launch Burner in late February after noticing Sub Rosa was looking for a new food pop-up.

Alison said: “I’ve got Fig and the Wild, catering events and supper clubs, and we’ve worked together on events before, in lockdown I was doing graze boxes with Fig and the Wild and needed somebody to help with those. Someone suggested Lou, we met and she’s amazing, so hardworking, and we’ve become best friends. 

“When I saw that Ped at Sub Rosa was looking for somebody, we were chatting and thought it would be a really fun idea to do for the summer.”

Within four weeks, and with help from graphic designer Dave Hand who created all their branding and even built the pop-up’s counter and signage, they were ready to open for the season.

Alison 45 adds: “We both love food and love working together, and because it’s a short-term commitment it’s the perfect way to try an idea out, if we were going to put our name to something it had to look beautiful and be quality; not just something we were churning out, something we were really proud of.

“We talked about the kind of foods we’d want to eat when we were out and about, and also it was really important that we didn’t just do burgers. I love a burger, so not about being snobby about them, we just wanted to do something that was slightly different and we wanted the menu to change weekly because we’re conscious that there are a lot of regular customers.”

Burner will be at Sub Rosa until it closes, around the end of September, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays – then Sundays too throughout August.

Alison says: “It’s been absolutely mad, I don’t know if either of us realised the amount of work because I don’t think we anticipated it being so busy, but it’s nice because people are coming and seeing Burner and Sub Rosa as a food destination not just a drinks destination which is what we always wanted.”

Get all the information you need about Sub Rosa here.

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