The hamburger that we eat today was, originally, a simple fillet of minced meat between two slices of bread that could be easily consumed at any time and place. Today it is one of the most popular and universal snacks, enjoyed by all social strata and in any corner of the planet. There are beef, pork, lamb, chicken and even fish, vegetarian or seed.
As always, there are different theories about its origin. What is clear is that it was created between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, although the authorship is disputed by Germany and the United States. It is clear that it was conceived in Hamburg, hence its name, but also that it was the Americans who perfected it and, above all, those who popularized it on a global scale, through well-known fast food chains. Today, along with pizza and Italian pasta, it is the most popular dish on the planet. It even has its own International Burger Day: May 28.
Although its preparation does not have much science, you do not always get a good hamburger, the one that makes thousands of people from all over the world travel to a place to try a specific version. The key is in the quality of the meat, in the little tricks of the grill or chef when cooking it, and in the condiments and accompaniments that are added. Thousands of chefs around the world have been trying to make the perfect burger for more than a century. It is probably among those that we present below…
01 Journey to the origins
HAMBURG AND BERLIN
Despite the name, one tends to associate Hamburg more with sausages than burgers. It is said that the first one was born here, in 1891, in the port of the German city, when someone had the idea of making a minced beef sandwich with an egg on top. Dock workers and sailors quickly took to this easy-to-eat sandwich and exported it around the world.
Today, if we want to try a good hamburger, we can do it at The Bird, which also has very popular places in Berlin. They are huge hamburgers, with good meat and with all kinds of ingredients, perfect for large carnivores. But the German city where hamburgers are really fashionable is in Berlin, where they cause a real furor. There, too, are the Birds (one in Prenzlauer Berg and the other in Kreuzberg), whose hamburgers and fries justify the local's advertising boom. The dressings and homemade cheesecakes are great.
The other two classic Berlin references are the BBI (Berlin Burger Internatonal), which has a reputation for being the best burger in the city, despite the dwarf size of the premises, and the Burgermeister, some centuries-old old toilets that currently house this hamburger restaurant located under the elevated tracks of the U-Bahn. The 100% beef burgers are fantastic, especially with homemade sauces like peanut and mango curry.
02 gourmet burgers
PARIS
Blend's are probably the best burgers in Paris. The meat is the best of the best, as are all the ingredients, from the homemade ketchup to the crusty bread they make on site. The menu with specialties of all kinds that go beyond beef or pork, makes you salivate while you choose what to order: there is lamb, smoked salmon or, for vegetarians, quinoa and breaded mozzarella with dried tomatoes, tomato and basil. A delight with that gourmet touch that only the French achieve.
Another option for gourmets is to go to Le Marais, the Jewish quarter (today also converted into the gay quarter), among whose jewelers and khoser food shops there is a hamburger joint in the purest 1950s diner style. It is Schwartz's burger, marked with the classic blue and red striped bar that old fashioned barbershops keep on their doorstep. Its Jewish origin means that some products are different (for example, the bacon is turkey), and that there are very particular specialties on the menu, such as salmon or duck burgers. Desserts are tricky to get to, but if your stomach holds out, they're well worth a try, especially their legendary cheesecake. It can also be ordered to go.
03 Hamburger, trendy dish
LONDON
In such a cosmopolitan, touristic and diverse city, it is logical that hamburgers are among the most popular foods. In fact, some of London's best burger joints are among the hottest spots in the British capital. The first is Bobo Social, which at first glance looks like nothing more than one of the many cool burger joints dotted around London. But things are different here: there's champagne, for starters, cocktails with a twist, and delicious starters, like shrimp ceviche or chicken pâté with red onion compote and toast. The burgers are made with free-range meat from local farms and are prepared with a wide variety of ingredients: in addition to the classic ones, we have lobster and crab, beef and chorizo with Manchego cheese, and even wagyu beef. On certain occasions they also serve special meats (such as kangaroo, crocodile and ostrich).
Very different is the Boom Burguer, a Jamaican establishment specialized in hamburgers in the heart of London. Not long ago it opened on Portobello Road but it has become fashionable and it is normal to see queues in front of its small premises. The Boom Burger is a classic cheeseburger with bacon jam, but it also serves Jamaican dishes such as the Jerk Boom –chicken with fried plantain, mango and pawpaw sauce– or the Brunch Boom, a hamburger with bacon, avocado sauce and fried egg .
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But London gives for much more. True burger addicts shouldn't miss out on Honest Burgers, one of the most popular burger joints in London at the moment and probably the most British. Their best burger is the Honest, with cheddar cheese, bacon, pickles, lettuce and their famous red onion. The meat is from Yorkshire and the potatoes are wonderful, seasoned with rosemary. The restaurant is very small and is always crowded, but the luck of the Spanish is that we always get to eat when the English have finished.
Another hot spot is Patty & Bun, which started out selling hamburgers out of a van and soon went on to open a small shop near Oxford Street. Today it has several establishments in London and its specialties include the Smokey Robinson, a hamburger with caramelized onions, lettuce, mayonnaise, bacon and lots of melted cheese.
04 The temples of the Big Apple
NEW YORK
In New York, the hamburger becomes a star dish, where each local boasts of serving the best and each tourist of having found the definitive hamburger. New Yorkers tend to be juicy, greasy, and generally gigantic. There are with and without cheese, and with all kinds of sauces, even with truffle.
This mini burger route can start with the favorite burger joint of many, Shake Shack, original from Madison Square Park. Its specialty milkshake, accompanied by chips, is a real delight. It is also cheap and this means that the popular New York restaurant is growing by leaps and bounds and expanding beyond the city. The Shake Shack at Soho Park is the perfect break from Soho shopping.
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Among the classic places, we must mention PJ Clarke's, in front of Lincoln Center, with friendly waiters and succulent dishes such as its magnificent Back Angus hamburger, accompanied by a Brooklyn Lager beer. Highly recommended is also the Burger Joint, the worst kept secret in the world. With only a small neon in the shape of a hamburger as an advertisement, this burger hides behind a curtain in the lobby of the Le Parker Meridien hotel. It's no longer as hip or secretive as it used to be, but it retains its funky graffiti-patterned walls and retro booths. The choice is easy: hamburger or cheeseburger, cooked and seasoned to taste. The Cadillac is a safe choice and to accompany, some fries, a pitcher of beer and a look at the walls for celebrity doodles. Better to go early or late, or arm yourself with patience.
More and more people say that DuMont's hamburger in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is one of the best in New York. It is a new classic although, in reality, the restaurant has many other delicious dishes that have been overshadowed by the good hamburger. The rear garden of the premises, beautiful and very cozy, has an outdoor bar and a very special area called the tree house.
It has also become famous for its hamburgers, Luger Burger, from Peter Lugers, in Brooklyn; for many, the best steakhouse in town. It is the quintessential New York steakhouse and its burger is made with the best product imaginable. Oh, always undercooked. In this gourmet line is Burger and Barrel Bash Style Burguer, which has won the award for the best burger in the city several times.
If we go by the suggestions of New Yorkers, we will surely include the Corner Bistro on 4th Street, easy to recognize by its red neon letters. It bills itself as the latest bohemian bar in West Greenwich Village and it's worth trying one (or several) of its fairly inexpensive burger varieties.
We would need an entire guide to include all the good New York burgers, but we can't resist pointing out a few more. For example, the Murder by Burger, in Marble Lane, which serves one with more than 200 grams of meat well accompanied by fried egg, pickle, caramelized onion, mushrooms, bacon, cheese, avocado and tomato. Or, for gourmets, the db Bistro Moderne hamburger, which stands out for the slices of foie gras and truffle sandwiched between the meat.
If we prefer the big chains, the Island Burgers & Shakes restaurants are small places with a retro feel, fast and with lots of very cheap varieties. The unpretentious Pau's da Burguer Joint in Manhattan also has its audience. Those looking for organic ingredients and local products, the great chain Steak'n Shake Burgers has opened its first location in New York, in the neighborhood of Brooklyn.
05 Other American hamburgers
FROM ALASKA TO FLORIDA
In the lists of the best hamburgers in the world that are made every year, there are always many American references but not necessarily New Yorkers. For example, the Burger Joint in San Francisco, which with its red and turquoise decoration takes us back to the 50s. Their meats are great, their milkshakes are creamy and their beers are non-alcoholic. There is no shortage of vegetable burgers or chicken breast burgers to satisfy Californians, who are more regulars of healthy food than other Americans.
Also surprising in these lists of top hamburger restaurants are some located in the state of Alaska. It's the Roadrunner, with ultra-thick, well-seasoned malted burgers that quickly make us forget the Burger King whoppers. And there are award-winning burgers all over the country, from original Texas specialties with a Hispanic twist, to chef Michael Symon's popular burgers at his B Spot restaurant in Cleveland, which succeed with their mix of good beef with a slice of bacon or fried salami, provolone cheese and mustard sauce and Hungarian red pepper.
In Florida, some food trucks have won global competitions for the best burger, such as the Latin Macho Burger served at the Latin Burger & Taco Food Truck in Miami. It is a perfect combination of a double meat and chorizo hamburger, seasoned with spicy mayonnaise, fried onion and white cheese.
In Chicago they also boast of good meat and magnificent hamburgers, such as Kuma's Corner, a delicious specialty with red onion, tomato, lettuce, bacon and spicy cheddar cheese. On top of all these ingredients, a delicious fried egg is placed and to give it the final touch, the traditional German bread in the shape of a bow, the pretzel, is used, creating a perfect combination between salty and juicy.
06 Swiss Burger
GENEVA
After the American protein binge, we jump to Europe. Talking about hamburgers in Switzerland may not be too much, but why not? They have excellent beef, unbeatable cheeses and they know how to do things well. They demonstrate it at The Hamburger Foundation, in Geneva, where they have mixed good local products with learning, in the United States, of the secret of the perfect hamburger to create a proposal that is probably the best hamburger in the entire country.
07 Japan, beyond sushi
TOKYO
The hamburger is a star dish all over the world and it stopped being a simple fast food snack a long time ago. In Japan, it competes with the delicate Japanese cuisine, as they have managed to introduce their own twist to the traditional American meat sandwich. A good example is the MOS Burguer, Japan's second chain after McDonald's, which is already spreading to neighboring countries. In its premises, everything has a Zen air and you can appreciate the fusion of flavors typical of the country of the rising sun. We can try their Yakiniku Burger, very simple, based on laminated beef so finely that it almost has the texture of a minced meat fillet. Instead of the traditional bread, they serve it between two pieces of compacted rice bread.
In Tokyo we can also try the Blacows hamburgers, in Ebisnishi (Shibuya). The meat is of the highest quality, not quite Kobe, but at very reasonable prices. You can see the cook cutting the meat and how the hamburgers are prepared, which are large, well seasoned and well served, served on good French-style bread.
08 Eatily, 'Slow Food' Burgers
ROME
Eataly, flagship of the Piedmont Slow Food movement, also makes the hamburger a quality gastronomic proposal. In Rome, Eataly, L'Hamburgeria serves 100% Piedmont meat sourced from a company certified with the Slow Food seal. For those who like softer meats, there is also a chicken burger or the strolghino, made with a fresh mixture of pork salami. It is in the middle of Via Veneto and the quality of its hamburgers make it a really special place to eat or to take home.
09 Home
FROM MADRID TO SITGES
In Spain, better and better hamburgers are made, beyond the big chains, which, in turn, have not stopped evolving to adapt to new tastes. There are those of American tradition but also other proposals with a lot of innovation incorporated into the rolls.
In Madrid, some of the best creations are at Alfredo's (Lagasca, 5), a Madrid classic since the 1980s. It was opened by a New Yorker in love with Madrid's Movida and since then it continues to serve the best meat with some typical American accompaniments, such as coleslaw, barbecue sauce or tarts. The original hamburger restaurant is still open (on Calle Lagasca), but there are two more Alfredo's with the same success Juan Hurtado de Mendoza 11 and Conde de Aranda 4.
Off the beaten track, Bar Borodin (Ronda de Valencia) is a real find: it serves a spectacular hamburger made on a charcoal grill. To accompany them, magnificent craft beers. The place has zero glamor but the burgers are to die for.
Lastly, for some years gourmet chains have arrived in Madrid, such as Home Burger Bar, which serves meat from 100% organic cattle from the Sierra de Ávila between good bread and better vegetables, or Hamburger Nostra, an essential reference for foodies that offers up to thirty different flavors (from meat from the Sierra de Guadarrama to beef from the Valles del Esla or Japanese or Mexican recipes). It began with a dozen stalls (Raza Nostra) in Madrid markets (San Antón, Alonso Cano, La Paz or Toriijos), where they sold hamburgers prepared to take home that could also be eaten in the same place prepared on a griddle.
In Barcelona there are many places that are highly recommended for hamburger lovers, but we have chosen two: one author and the other organic. The first of them, La Royale (Plaça del Camp), has gastronomic advice from chef Paco Pérez. In addition to its gourmet burgers made with meats from around the world, it is famous for its gin and tonics and its desserts. The place is the old Can Massana, a restaurant well known in the 1970s as a meeting point for Gauche Divine artists.
El Filete Ruso has only been open for a short time but has already become an essential reference in Barcelona. Located in the Eixample, it prepares its specialties with fresh seasonal products and offers up to 14 varieties of grilled burgers, including a vegetarian one. The beef comes from organic biodynamic cattle and the rest of the products are local, always specifying their origin.
Finally, if we trust the users of the TripAdvisor website, the best hamburger in Spain is not in any of the two large Spanish cities, but in the coastal town of Sitges. It is, specifically, the one served by Big Al's Burger Bar, in the purest American style and with all kinds of accessories: cheese, mixed lettuce, bacon, jalapeños, mayonnaise, vegetables, barbecue sauce, fried onions... All inside a bun artisan brioche. Those who have tried it assure that it is exquisite.
More information at www.lonelyplanet.es and in the Lonely Planet guides.
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