Detour #192: Fast Food: a 500-mile round trip to the best McDonald's in the world
no matter where in the world you go a big mac is a big mac. But what if it isn’t? what if one Mcdonald’s really is better than all the rest? nik berg had to find out.
My nearest McDonald’s is about ten minutes away. I don’t go often, but when I do I know pretty much what to expect. The Golden Arches may not offer the best burgers on the planet but they are consistent. McDonald’s has a system and a standard set of ingredients that guarantees burger mediocrity at an affordable price.
There are some 38,000 McDonald’s restaurants and they’re all supposed to be the same. So why, on a chilly morning am, I leaving London to drive to Wales for food that I could find on my doorstep?
It’s all down to Michelin-starred chef Gareth Ward. Ward’s restaurant Ynyshire won the 2022 National Restaurant Awards, so when he announced that the Golden Arches in Welshpool is the best in the world I had to try it for myself. Even though it’s over 200 miles away.
"I'm telling you now, Welshpool McDonald's is on a different level,” he said. “[It's] just absolutely smashing it. Everybody I speak to says this is, by far, the best McDonald's in the world.”
To build up an appetite I elect to take a Detour through the Shropshire Hills, so after an uneventful plod along the M40 motorway I find myself on the rather more interesting A456 and A 4117 from Kidderminster to Ludlow, skirting the Wyre Forest and passing castle after castle in this once heavily-fortified area on the border between England and Wales. Were this a cultural rather culinary trip, many hours could have been spent exploring the ramparts of the region.
For a brief moment I could almost be in Yorkshire, passing over a stretch of open moorland and dodging sheep before returning to the cultivated fields around Ludlow. The A49 takes me to Craven Arms, passing the grand Court and Castle of Stokesay before turning left onto the B4368 towards Clun (and another castle). Bishop’s Castle (guess what’s there) is next, then we cross back and forth between England and Wales, Wales and England on the way to Church Stoke and, finally, Welshpool.
The McDonald’s is on the outskirts of this historic town and its 13th Century Powis Castle (yep, another one) and the canal which was the motorway of its day, hauling goods and people from the late 18th century.
Aside from the busy car park and lengthy queue for the drive-thru there’s nothing to distinguish Welshpool’s Big Mac mecca from any other in the chain. The same is true inside, so I order up on the big touch screen and take a seat.
It might be the five hours it’s taken to get here and the hunger pangs that need satiating, but when the food arrives it really does taste better than any other McDonald’s I’ve had. The fries are crispy, without being greasy and I can identify the individual ingredients of my Big Mac instead of the usual generic McBlend.
In fact it is so good that I seriously contemplate staying for dinner as well. Then I remember it’s another five hour drive home, making this the lengthiest fast food journey I’ve ever undertaken, but I’m lovin’ it all the same.