The Bungalow

The first decision at The Bungalow isn't where to sit — it's what goes on the burger. The build-your-own burger is the house's leading order, the thing that turns an Old North pub on Waterloo Street into a burger-first local rather than another all-purpose bar with a grill out back. The name points the same direction: a bungalow is a modest, neighbourly sort of building, and the place leans into being exactly that, a neighbourhood hub more than a night-out destination. Still, the burger isn't the kitchen's whole personality — it sits alongside named house burgers, pizza, handhelds, fish and chips, and a kids menu, range enough to let a divided table find its footing without anyone settling.

Start with the build-your-own and the choices stack up fast; default instead to the Bungalow Beef Burger or the J&W Smash Burger and the kitchen makes the call for you. The named burgers run past the standards — there's a Nicky-John Burger, a Beef and Swiss Melt — and the fryer turns out rosemary fries that local patio coverage singles out as the table's easy shared side. Beyond the burgers the menu keeps widening: beer-battered fish and chips, low-and-slow pulled pork, southern fried chicken, bacon-wrapped scallops. The pizzas are where the kitchen shows some nerve, a Dill Pickle Pizza and a Butter Chicken Pizza sharing the same stone-baked list as the expected pies.

What the menu is really built for is the table that can't agree. The burger people get their lane; everyone else gets pizza, shareable starters like chipotle chicken spring rolls and wonton grilled chicken nachos, a vegetarian and vegan branch, and a kids menu that keeps families in the plan. When a group splits between handhelds and snacks, a pizza is the move that gives the meal a second centre rather than just stacking more burgers on the table. That breadth is the line between a destination dining room and a neighbourhood local, and The Bungalow is firmly the second — built for the familiar weeknight dinner and the return visit, not the special occasion.

The drinks list isn't an afterthought bolted to the food. A wide, rotating draft selection leads the bar — enough craft beer to be a reason to come on its own — and classic cocktails sit beside it, meant to be picked around the order rather than ahead of it. The pairing the kitchen all but writes for you is plain: a burger and a draft, the smash or the build-your-own leading and the glass chosen to match.

The setting matches the menu's lack of pretension. The address sits on Waterloo Street in Old North, a residential pocket north of downtown London, and the warm-weather draw is the shaded patio — the version of The Bungalow most regulars would steer a newcomer toward first. It's an outdoor table built for lingering rather than turning over, the right call when a group wants burgers, a few drafts, and no reason to hurry. The kitchen runs into the evening every day of the week, later on weekends, and a takeout menu covers the nights the patio is closed.

The throughline is utility. The Bungalow is the kind of local a neighbourhood keeps in steady rotation — close enough to be the default, broad enough that the same four people can order differently every visit. The build-your-own burger is the quiet engine of that breadth: the burger a regular stacks in June rarely matches the one from the trip before, which is reason enough to come back and build another. On Waterloo Street, that's the whole job — to be the easy yes on a Tuesday and still have something left to try by the weekend.