Higgsy's: Why burgers from a Peterborough layby are winning awards

​Everything from bar food in a boozer to your gastropub gourmet burgers with a stick through the top – but I don’t recall one which could hold a candle to what I was served at Higgsy’s this week.

Yes, I have been to smarter places – it is a layby hatch on the A15 near Norman Cross which Adam Miller opened with his partner Amber Higgs a couple of years ago.

They named it in tribute to her late father .

Adam explained: “I loved Man V Food (an American reality TV series) and what struck me was that the best places in towns that he visited were always non-touristy, not part of a chain, they were family run – somewhere everyone would say was the place to go.

“And the food was never pretentious, just great quality and great tasting. So our aim was to try to offer something like that.”

So in November 2022 the couple put their money where their mouth was, so to speak.

"We had no business experience, had never been in the food trade so we were making it up as we went along,” says Adam (everyone still calls him Higgsy).

"I am sure if we were businesspeople we would not have done what we are doing. The ingredients we choose to use are really expensive, the margins are not so great, but we believe it makes a difference."

"People like what we offer and come back,” said Adam. “We have lots of people that have been coming once or twice a week for two years - and not just local. We had someone from Newcastle that had seen us on TikTok drive down to eat here.

"We try really hard to make people happy and be the best we can and we are really proud of that."

And it’s not just customers who like what they do. At the East Anglian Small Business Awards they walked away with the Best Food and Drink and the “public vote” for Best Business awards to add to a growing collection in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire.

“The awards we picked up are a little bit of external validation of what we do here,” he said.

“Because we are not experienced in business it is nice to know that people think what we do is the right thing to do.

"But the way I look at it, it does not change a thing. When we opened up on the Tuesday after the awards night, nothing was different. This is all about giving customers what they want."

And what they want is there on the menu - which features burgers with names such as Redneck, Rooster, Hillbilly and the most popular the Daisy Duke, which was amazing as I found out on my visit.

It was beautifully cooked, and the distinctive flavours and textures were all there – the meaty burger, distinctive hotdog sausage, crunchy breadcrumbs, gooey cheese. It was filling, moreish and gone too soon!,

I could go on but I will let Adam fill you in.

"All of our burgers come on a brioche bun, and the Daisy Duke has pretty much every ingredient we sell in there - an imported German beef frankfurter, southern friend chicken fillet, two slices of proper English cheddar cheese, a three-ounce British chuck steak patty and two slices of 100 per cent mozzarella topped with two slices of streaky bacon.

"For us, it is not about making it look good, like putting a wooden skewer through the top of the bun. Our burgers are put together for people to eat and enjoy not just to make a nice photo of."

•Higgsy’s opens Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 3.30pm, and on Friday and Saturday nights they do deliveries through Just Eat.