Smashburger Showdown: Supernova vs. Junk

Smash burgers are London’s latest obsession, and nowhere is the turf war more intense than in Soho’s vibrant burger alley, where two newcomers: Supernova and Junk, have turned flame-crisped patties into performance art.

After spending time at both, tasting every drippy edge, here’s the verdict (spoiler alert): Supernova delivers a burger that tastes like a souped‑up Big Mac reimagined by someone obsessed with precision, while Junk is bold and noisy, but ultimately less balanced.

Supernova: A high-voltage homage to fast-food nostalgia

Supernova’s neon‑yellow spot sits just off Oxford Street, boasting pastel branding and a pared-back menu: two cheeseburgers, fries and sundaes, done obsessively well. Reviewers praise the House Cheeseburger (£9‑£10): two thin smashed patties, folded American cheese, red onions, crisp pickles, and their in‑house signature sauce, all stacked inside a soft Martin’s potato roll that somehow resists collapse.

Their technique is deliberate: an 80/20 British Angus blend spatulated hard until edges curl into lace (the Maillard crust), sealing in juices and flavour, not grease. The result is intense beef roastiness with a crispy bite and married cheese melt that feels luxurious yet familiar. As one GQ review put it: “It could very easily have been just another American burger, accommodating build styles… but Supernova does cheeseburgers so well that it's all they do.”

You won’t be able to eat Big Mac again after trying Supernova

Take that first bite and there’s a flood of savoury pleasure: salty crust, melty cheese, tangy pickles and onion bite, bright house sauce and nostalgia all at once. If a Big Mac grew up in Soho, went dry‑aging, and swapped Big Mac signature sauce for a curated sauce, it would taste like Supernova. Even the fries (crinkle‑cut, crisp, lightly seasoned) feel nostalgic yet elevated.

You leave feeling pleasantly full—not fat—and maybe even impressed with yourself for braving the queue. Lines can stretch to 50 minutes on weekends, but frequent diners say it’s almost always worth the wait. Somehow we got lucky when we went and only had one person in front of us.

Junk Burger: loud, laden, less nuanced

Just streets away, Junk Soho touts itself as the French smash‑burger vanguard, with an industrial-chrome interior and a menu built like retail sizing (small to XXL), one to five patties. You can smell the grease exuding from the kitchen from the street outside. Their large “three‑patty” burger is indulgent theatre, flaunting flavors but struggling to deliver depth.

From first sniff you get the oily beef aroma and melted cheese sheen. Each patty is ultra-thin and crisp on the edge, offering crunch, but bite into the centre and suddenly it dissipates. The burger feels less juicy inside but leaves behind a greasy slick. Junk’s sauce layers on tang, but not enough acidity to cut through the oil, leaving me reaching for napkins, not excitement.

Maybe we should have tried the truffle burger?

One reviewer noted: “When the patties are this thin, it's very manageable... you get meaty hit and meltingly soft bite”—but others observe that the flavour becomes repetitive after a few mouthfuls. While some fans rave about the XXL truffle burger (enhanced by caramelized onions and subtle earthy richness), the core medium burger often feels fragile and unbalanced.

Even the atmosphere in Junk matches the clunky, greasy burger they’re selling. With around 7 tables squeezed into a small corner, with peope standing on top of each other. It was difficult to even attempt to enjoy the burger. Definitely get take away!

The Verdict

Supernova’s burger nails the ratio: crisp edge meets melty cheese, balanced by acidic pickles and sauce. You walk away clean, content, and likely to want another. Junk’s heroism is crunch and drama but sacrifice comes in dryness, grease, and a hollow‑feeling finish.

Still, both deserve visits. Junk for those who want their burger loud and unpolished, Supernova for refined smash that feels like both comfort and craft.

Also bear in mind this is just my opinion, as google reviews disagree with Supernova having 4.1 stars but Junk winning with 4.4 stars.

Modem Works’ Dream Recorder - visualising you mind at night

What if your dreams became visible art? That’s the idea behind Modem Works’ Dream Recorder—a bedside box with open‑source AI design to turn your dream recollections into video reels. You can save up to a week’s worth of dreams and rewatch them to relive your imagination.

Here’s how it works: after you wake, you speak your dream aloud into the device. It uses voice transcription and generative AI (via Luma AI and ChatGPT frameworks) to interpret your description, before rendering a short, glitchy visual “dreamscape” animation. At London’s TechXChange, one test subject who dreamt of swimming through neon clouds saw pastel tendrils swirl across the device’s screen; another who dreamed of transforming into a bee woke up to a moving flower-hive hallucination.

Researchers at MIT (Dormio project) and elsewhere are exploring live brainwave mapping and dream-triggered feedback—but Modem’s Recorder leans into the poetic rather than neuroscience. You won’t see exact dream details, just an aesthetic echo of your subconscious. And for many users, that’s the point: a curated mirror, not a forensic transcript.

It raises questions: if machines can externalise our inner lives, what then is memory, identity—and art? For now, the Dream Recorder feels like a personal dream gallery built into your bedroom, a nightly ritual that blurs the line between sleep and art, telling you that maybe your dreams are worth watching.

Learn more here: https://modemworks.com/projects/dreamrecorder/