Phagomania: Fat and Furious

Burgers are better. I mean, you get your meat, cheese, veg and bread – all the essentials. But the burger is as visually iconic as it is great thing to eat. We have in the past showcased some weird and wonderful burgers and its loyal cousin the sandwich, but all hail: the Fat And The Furious. Who'd have thought the French could champion the burger better than the Yanks?

Capturing moments in burger form, these creations developed from the lunchtimes of two Paris-based designers, Quentin and Thomas. Scanning down the multitude of Friday creations on their website begets many questions. Consequently, we put the French duo through a bit of a grilling to find out what was at the heart of Fat and Furious. Was there substance to their style, or just je ne sais quoin?

The website clearly shows how you have progressed from more innocent, edible themed burgers to magnificently constructed spectacles. Was this a natural progression or was there a conscious moment when you decided to raise the possibilities of the photos to a greater level?

In the beginning, there were two hungry stomachs, obsessed with eating burgers for lunch. From this obsession came weekly meet-ups, where our most foodie vices were set free. Over the course of these sessions, we crafted naïve, and amateur gastronomical creations that satisfied our empty stomachs. Naturally, our project then evolved, in particular on a visual level; after all you eat your burger first with your eyes! Real foodporn.

So, why burgers? Is there anything in particular that they represent to you?

We both come from huge families, and we’ve both always felt like the pattie between the buns. Hundreds of websites offer thousands of recipes, but we don’t want to teach people to cook – there’s no point writing stuff that makes you hungry.

I understand you are both designers. As a graphic designer myself I appreciate how you use visual symbols and play with objects to create visual puns and contradiction of expectations. Do you see the end results as subversive and do you get negative reactions?

Of course! We’re always looking to provoke, sometimes even disgust. All our burgers must be, at least, fat or furious. The composition of our burgers often comes from real life. We always look to extract the most vicious themes and transcribe them through our way of cooking or of presenting things. Fat and Furious Burger is, above all, an outlet where anything goes, outside of the constraints linked to our working lives. 

Your photographs are often bright and fun, presenting the subject in a celebratory manner. But they could also be read as a commentary on consumerism and greed. Do you have an intended message? 

In a time where we’re hearing more and more of organic, healthy, ecologically responsible food, we’re not afraid to say that we like fat, proper fat, from a properly fatty juicy burger. Which is probably not going to do you any good, but it’ll satisfy your grumbling stomach at lunchtime in the most beautiful way. So making that special is all the more perverse and provocative. 

It looks as if you use Photoshop for some of the backgrounds. Are the burgers always real and is this important?

All the burgers we’ve made have really existed and have all been eaten from the first to the last crumb. It is above all our lunch break, and like any Friday, we’re hungry. Every week we seek to experiment and associate flavours to one another. This has lead to both huge surprises and furious indigestion. Photoshop occasionally helps us make such impossible associations more acceptable.

Have you had any failures or burgers that were too difficult or bizarre to make?

There are no failures when you know how to use Photoshop quickly and efficiently. (laughs)  

As your creations get more unusual and outlandish, is it important that you can actually eat the burger, or has the symbol surpassed the actual function of the food?

As we often say, Fat and Furious Burger is first and foremost the story of two hungry guys. The fun of improvising in the moment sometimes forces us to eat them cold, but that’s part of the game. On the other hand, thinking as designers, our desires have evolved too and we are looking to move away from the structure of our site by partnering with restaurants or magazines.

The Phagomania burger special coninues with some personal favourites here.

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Thanks to George Sully for the translation of Quentin and Thomas's answers.