The Keto Diet is all the rage these days — it was the most Googled diet in 2018. Originally invented in the ’20s to treat epileptic children, the diet has since been adopted by millions of people as a means to lose weight.

What is a ketogenic diet? Simply put, it’s a high-fat, moderate-protein and low-carb diet, which results in your body going into a ketosis state, where it will start burning stored fats in the absence of carbs, and produce ketone acids that fuel you, so you don’t feel ‘hangry’ on this diet.

Unlike traditional diets that call for you to munch miserably on a few salad leaves, the keto plan allows you to eat. Whew. The list of ‘approved’ foods includes meat and eggs for extra protein, and typical diet horrors like butter and cream, which are high in fat content. But what you can’t really eat on the keto diet is carbs. Only very small amounts of carbs are allowed (since most foods, even fruits and veggies, contain a small amount of carbs). Which means you can’t eat anything with sugar, and obvious carb-fest stuff like rice, bread, pasta and potatoes. Not so easy after all.

But what if you really, really crave a burger? Burgers are usually, er, off the table if you’re on a keto diet, ’cos it comes with carb-laden buns. So colour us intrigued when we got a PR rep’s e-mail about “Singapore’s first-ever keto-compliant gourmet burgers”, which are offered permanently on the menu at casual Suntec City meat-centric diner The Butcher’s Kitchen, which collaborated with ketogenic bakery Seriously Keto (run by a baker who makes fab, Keto diet-compliant extremely low-carb baked goodies).

There are four types of KetoBurgers available in this collab, all with house-blended Australian grass and grain-fed meat patties in your choice of Beef ($18.80), Pork ($16.80), Roast Pork ($17.80) and Chicken ($13.80). The burgers are said to be “zero sugar, gluten-free, diabetic-friendly and ultra-low in carbs”, with sauces made from keto-friendly recipes.

The burgers come with buns, albeit a keto, gluten-free version baked by Seriously Keto: it’s made with almond flour, egg whites, unsalted butter and apple cider vinegar, with onion powder and a sprinkling of sunflower seeds. It also supposedly contains only 2.9g of carbs (a regular bun usually contains about 21g of carbs), so you won’t feel guilty after your meal.

And if you miss your kaya toast-and-kopi breakfast, there’s a ketogenic one here, too. Prepared like a traditional local breakfast set, the usual white bread toast is replaced with Seriously Keto’s toasted almond flour buns, and served with a small jar each of kaya and nut butter made with a erythritol, a keto-friendly natural sweetener, plus two soft-boiled eggs and either coffee or tea.

We try the beef and pork KetoBurgers, plus the keto breakfast kaya bun set to see if they hit the spot.

Even though you’re not restricted from eating meat on a keto diet, moderation and portion control is key. Which is probably why this burger is so, er, daintily-sized. It’s about the same size as Mos Burger’s petite offerings. But, as the Ketobuns contain psyllium husks (a type of fibre that fills you up quickly), it’s quite filling. The burger is stacked high with a thick Australian grass-fed beef chuck patty, a slice of tomato, springy lettuce, cheddar cheese and a slick of mustard. It’s all pretty yummy and hearty: the juicy patty is grilled to a medium pink smoky finish, and goes well with the sunflower-seed speckled keto buns, which boasts a slightly dense, yet somehow fluffy, pillowy texture despite looking very stodgy. We didn’t miss the usual white bread at all. Most importantly, we didn’t feel like we were depriving ourselves of a regular burger.

Unlike the beef burger, this grilled pork burger doesn’t fare as well. We found the ground Aussie pork shoulder patty pretty bland, and not as satisfying as the beef version.

This is the most expensive Ya Kun-style breakfast set we have eaten, but that’s ’cos everything is made according to strict Keto requirements. The same kind of Ketobun used for the burgers is reworked as decent ‘toast’ here by slicing it into thinner rounds (we suggest having yours toasted till it’s crispy), and the accompanying pandan-infused Kaya Kryptonite KetoSpread with 3.4g of carb count is decadently creamy and coconutty though it could do with a bigger hit of pandan flavour. The 5.2g carb count peanut Utter Nutter is also smooth, earthy and guilt-free.

Getting in shape can be painful (the deprivation! The food restrictions!), and finding keto-friendly grub is not as easy as the diet is touted to be. But The Butcher’s Kitchen’s Ketoburgers — especially the yummy buns baked by Seriously Keto — are more than decent and quite hit the spot when you're craving a burger.

The Butcher’s Kitchen is at #02-472 Tower 3, Suntec City Mall, S038983. Tel: 9616-0111. Open daily 10am-10pm. www.thebutcherskitchen.sg.