retiredmartin

February 2026. Turin.

Two hours and two pints into Turin, with the sudden realisation we hadn’t eaten since sharing a croissant in Monaco that morning.

The disappointment in finding the city’s highest rating brewery/skatepark/burger bar didn’t start flipping till 6pm on a Friday was palpable, but luckily Google recommended the small chain of M** Bun*, with a branch a few streets away.

Pleasant streets, but far too quiet, unless it really does come alive at 10pm (spoiler : not obviously).

And at 5:20pm M** Bun, with trademark red cow and fiat outside wasn’t bustling.

But we were here, it was colourful and clean, and the staff were really helpful as we navigated that bar code on the table system. And the pint of microbrewery Helles in the meal deal (17,90 euros) is served in a proper glass,

so this is more Vocation (or Brew Dog when they were good a thousand years ago) rather than Five Guys, the only international chain I noticed that night.

The strapline in “slow food” served fast or something, which was odd as we waited 20 minutes for the house burger, but at least the nice lady brought out the sensationally chewy potato chips early. You’ll notice what Mrs RM had with her meal deal.

When it came, the meat was a welcome to return to the days before those dreadful smash burgers.

A family turned up, we enjoyed making faces at their baby, and by 6pm a bit more trade arrived , possibly attracted by the 9% Imperial DIPA (acording to Untappd) which sadly wasn’t part of the meal deal.

Equally sadly, the vending machine didn’t dispense a small pebble with the words “Stop drinking now” on it.

But then you wouldn’t have wanted us to go past a pub with a Bass mirror, would you ?

*_{I never did find out what the two asterisks stood for, can you guess ?}