In their June 2009 issue Seattle Metropolitan names the 13 best burgers in and around Seattle (accompanied by drool-worthy burger photos). Let us know what you think of their list:
Spring Hill
Red Mill Burgers
Jak's Grill
Zippy’s Giant Burgers
Teddy’s Bigger Burgers
22 Doors
Burgermaster
Skillet [AHT review]
Café Campagne
Stumbling Goat Bistro
Two Bells [AHT review]
Voilà! Bistrot
Palace Kitchen
I’m a huge fan of the food at Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners. It’s got to be the only stadium in the country where you can score Thai curry, clam chowder, and an order of edamame along with the typical popcorn, peanuts and Cracker Jack. I’ll go to an M’s game at the Safe just so I can order an Ichiroll, the spicy tuna creation named for the single-named star of the team (Ichiro) or to dive into seared salmon drizzled in a sun-dried tomato beurre blanc at the Hit It Here Café. But with the recent arrival of Seattle’s premier mobile kitchen, I’m well fed before I even pass through the turnstile.
Skillet Street Food is now parked on the home plate side of Safeco Field a couple of hours before home games, serving an abbreviated version of its ‘round town menu. This kitschy kitchen located in an Airstream Trailer offers a winning lineup of sandwiches: pulled pork, fried chicken and a creation not-so-humbly called "The Burger."
When it comes to burgers, size matters. But bigger isn't always better, especially at Taste, the urban-chic restaurant at the Seattle Art Museum.
A pair of minis is a portrait in sustainability. The special grind of organic beef comes from Skagit River Ranch and the Samish Bay farmstead gouda is produced 40-some miles north of the city at Rootabaga Country Farms. The wee buns come from nearby Columbia City Bakery. The only far-flung ingredient on the plate is the Dijon that is folded into the house aioli.
Taste is rightfully proud to point out on its menu the percentage of products sourced in Washington and Oregon. (It varies from season-to-season, currently standing at 46 percent at lunch, 53 percent at dinner.)
Editor's note: Burgermeisters! Here's another excerpt from George Motz's book Hamburger America. George and his publisher were kind enough to allow us to run them here, along with George's beautiful photos. Eat up!
Big Tom could easily be the most nondescript burger stand in America. If it were not for the large menu on the street side of the building you'd think you had arrived at a construction trailer that had been haphazardly dumped in a parking lot. But the long lines of cars on each side of the structure are a hint that something good is happening inside. Indeed there is. Big Tom daily sells over five-hundred fresh thin-patty wonders to loyal drive-up customers. But that’s not all. Big Tom’s trademarked "Goop" is dispensed here, a salad-type dressing that, in varying forms, is a Pacific Northwest mainstay for burgers.
Editor's note: Burgermeisters! Here's another excerpt from George Motz's book Hamburger America. George and his publisher were kind enough to allow us to run them here, along with George's beautiful photos. Dick's Drive-In just turned 55 years old, so visit them if you can to celebrate!
Dick’s is a drive-in. There are 5 locations around town and only one has indoor seating. It’s the sort of drive-in where you park your car and walk up to the window to order and pay. General manager Ken Frazier told me, “Dick's has always been a walk up. Originally there were three separate lines, one for shakes and ice cream, one for burgers and soft drinks, and one for fries.” In the 60's Dick’s streamlined the system selling all products at all windows. At the 45th Street location there’s no seating anywhere and Maria, longtime manager, told me, “In the summertime people bring picnic tables and chairs and set up in the parking lot. It’s really cute.”
The efficiency of Dick’s is mind-boggling. Over twenty-four employees, all wearing crisp paper caps and clean aprons, are set to repetitive tasks such as weighing the fresh ice cream that goes into the shakes or prepping the buns with their secret sauce.
Seattle's mini-chain Dick's Drive-In is currently celebrating 55 years of speedy burger service. Their official birthday was yesterday—the first Dick's opened in Wallingford on January 28, 1945—but tomorrow they're offering Cokes in all sizes for only 10¢ each, and Beatles cover band The Nowhere Men will be performing at their Queen Anne location at 7 p.m. For all five locations, visit their website (all locations are drive-ins except for Queen Anne, which has indoor seating). What are your memories from Dick's Drive-In? [Tip o' the hat to jkdrummer]
Seattlest says the recently opened Burger Madness makes the best burger in the SoDo neighborhood. They recommend the sourdough bacon burger, a "thick, huge, juicy, hand-shaped, ever-so-slightly-charred" patty topped with Swiss cheese, tomato, grilled onions, and two slices of bacon in between mayonnaise-slathered slices of toasted sourdough bread. Someone needs to show me a photo of this thing so I can admire it from afar.
Burger Madness
4117 4th Avenue, Seattle WA 98134 (map)
206-623-3178
After visiting Lunchbox Laboratory in Seattle, a burger joint that focuses on using organic, local, and high-quality ingredients, David Roberts's quest for "Best Burger Ever" is over. He reviews the restaurant at Gristmill, explaining the different types of meat available (including "dork," a mix of duck and pork) and add-ons, like the wide variety of cheese, mayonnaise, sauce, and ketchup. There are about ten kinds of milkshakes and even different types of salt to go with the fries. For full menu offerings, check out their website (Warning: Website is flash-based and frighteningly bad to the point that it might give you nightmares.)
Amazingly, the man behind Lunchbox Laboratory's indulgent, food coma-inducing offerings, Scott Simpson, has had gastric bypass surgery and can only comfortably eat one-eighth of a burger at once. The Stranger has more on Simpson's story
Posted by Robyn Lee, September 5, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Burger Ranch in Sunnyside, Washington, sells a lot more than burgers—there's also fried asparagus, sweet potato fries, and New Balance shoes. And they're on sale for $39!
A younger version of myself would have shook his head in disappointment at Robb Walsh, food critic for the Houston Press. But an older, wiser me admires his restraint here. What might be the best burger in Texas—at 105 Grocery & Deli in Washington, Texas—is also gigantic, he says, and he could only finish half.
I went with a double, double, pink in the middle, all the way. I could barely believe the size of the sandwich that was set in front of me. It came wrapped in tissue paper in a paper-lined blue plastic basket full of golden fries. The meat bulged out of the bun. It was unevenly shaped, with a lot of charred crispy areas along the edges. I am guessing that each patty was around two-thirds of a pound.
That burger sounds amazing. And, it uses both yellow and white American cheese. That's a touch of class, folks.
But what's more interesting about Walsh's article is his musing on why the best burgers in Texas seem to come from convenience or grocery stores. Paradoxically, it's because they don't take burger-making seriously.
... As the convenience store becomes more famous for burgers than groceries, it begins ruining the homemade quality of the burgers by borrowing bad habits from high-volume burger operations.
Interesting theory, and one I'm perfectly willing to accept.
105 Grocery & Deli
17255 Highway 105, Washington TX (map)
936-878-2273
Flame Burgers, in the Jet City's Queen Anne neighborhood, gets a nod in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Unfortunately, the pulled-pork sandwich rates higher on the reviewer's list than the burgers:
The burgers are more backyard grill with their Tillamook cheddar and ripe tomatoes than, say, Red Mill Burger's caramelized onions and roasted Anaheim peppers that practically achieve haute cuisine ($4.75, $6.25 with fries). That's not to say creative fixings don't surface -- 'shroom lovers can add portobellos for $1.50. In a nod to co-owner Nicholas Polimenakos' Greek heritage, spinach and feta are also on the extras list.
Flame Burgers Address: 2123 Queen Anne Ave North, Seattle WA 98109 Phone: 206-283-6007 URL:flameburgers.com
Here's a killer list we've mentioned on AHT but have never elaborated on. It's Alan Richman's top 20 from his July 2005 story "The 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die" in GQ. Do click through to read the entire piece; it quickly made its way onto the Required Reading list at AHT HQ. Bon appétit! ...
AOL Cityguide has done it again. In late March, the good folks there brought you the best burgers in New York. Now they've compiled the "15 Burgers to Try Before You Die" (hmm ... strange echo of Alan Richman's piece in GQ last year, "The 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die.") Without further ado, they are ...
Hey ho, hamburger hermanos y hermanas! I hope your Fourth of July was a good one, that you didn't blow off any fingers, and that you had some tasty burgers at the cookouts you attended.
Speaking of grilling hamburgers over Independence Day weekend, did you know that's when Americans buy the most beef? That's what I heard on a broadcast yesterday afternoon on American Public Media's Marketplace show. Not surprising, eh? That factoid was in the intro to a very nice piece on Burgerville (listen here), a small 39-store chain in Washington and Oregon.
If you live in the Northwest, you know Burgerville does it right. Special items on the menu vary from month to month, according to what's in season. This month, for instance, Walla Walla onion rings and raspberry milkshakes and shortcakes are the thing. Chocolate-hazelnut* milkshakes were available earlier this year.
More important to this site, however, is Burgerville's beef. The meat for its burgers comes from Oregon cattle raised by sustainable methods, and it is always fresh–never frozen. Moreover, the small Vancouver, Washington–based chain has been using this meat in all its stores since February 2004. According to the Marketplace story, it only costs Burgerville 5¢ more per patty. And that's pretty cheap, considering that customers get healthier meat and that ranchers have further incentive to raise cattle in a more earth-friendly way.
Like In-N-Out, Burgerville is an exemplary model of what fast-food burgers can be but too often, sadly, aren't. Anyone within a short hop of Burgerville would be well-advised to take up temporary residence there as opposed to McDonaldland or the shoddily run realm of the Burger King.
My trip to Seattle was a rousing success. It would have been fabulous whether or not I had consumed a few burgers, but Two Bells Tavern added something special to my trip. Two Bells is, appropriately, in the Belltown area of Seattle. Eager to check out the Seattle burger scene, I popped by on my first night in town. Despite the rainy night, the place was pretty full. Then again, most nights are rainy nights in Seattle.
A large portion of the restaurant is monopolized by the bar, but it's obvious that people stop in for more than a couple brewskis. My uncle, girlfriend and I grabbed a table and perused the menu. Karen, my ex-Seattlite friend, had warned me that there would be no fries, but it was still odd to not even have them as option. In the end it didn't matter as they had some kick-ass baked beans. The oddities continued when I found out the burger was served on a baguette and the meat was a combination of brisket and round (similar to Shake Shack) mixed with garlic and olive oil. Not your typical burger, but it was certainly enticing.
The burger arrived and, as usual, I ripped off the top bun to see what's under the hood. The patty wasn't round, which makes sense as the baguette isn't either, and the cheddar cheese was melted perfectly over the meat. I assembled my burger with the lettuce and tomato on the side and took a bite. On first reaction, I was put off by the baguette. The quality was fine, but a bread this rigid isn't suitable for burger consumption; it's too difficult to focus on the real good. Once I overcame the bread situation, things took a very positive turn. The burger was succulent and overflowed with flavor. The brisket was prominent, but the garlic added a subtle kick that made the taste truly unique. Unsurprisingly, the burger's short life ended quickly that night.
Aside from the bun, my only regret was not ordering the baked beans. I went with the chili, which was good, but the beans were excellent. Make sure to grab those if you get a chance to make it to Two Bells. Also, make sure to stop by Top Pot Donuts when you're done for some darn-tasty treats.
The food at Two Bells was all very reasonably priced, possibly because Belltown used to be a somewhat seedy/artsy neighborhood, which you can tell by the current clientele (more artsy than seedy). In the end, this was a great recommendation by friends and readers alike. So far, AHT fans are 1 for 1.
Two Bells Tavern Location:2313 4th Ave. in Belltown Phone: 206-441-3050 Hours: 11am - 2am What's Cookin': The unorthodox but delicious meat mix and the baked beans
This weekend, I will be in Seattle for a long weekend (thank you, Jewish holiday of Shavuot!). Aside from the typical trips to Pike Place Market and the Experience Music Project, I will most definitely be hitting up some burger joints. We like to take full advantage of vacations here at AHT.
Thus far, I know to try to check out Dick's and Burgermaster, but I'm hoping that our dear readers will be able to offer some other possibilities. So, what's good in Seattle?
It's unlikely I'll be able to attend all your suggestions, but I'll do my best. Thanks in advance, AHT readers!
When it comes to burgers, size matters. But bigger isn't always better, especially at 
Seattlest says the recently opened 
Hey ho, hamburger 
My trip to Seattle was a rousing success. It would have been fabulous whether or not I had consumed a few burgers, but 
The burger arrived and, as usual, I ripped off the top bun to see what's under the hood. The patty wasn't round, which makes sense as the baguette isn't either, and the cheddar cheese was melted perfectly over the meat. I assembled my burger with the lettuce and tomato on the side and took a bite. On first reaction, I was put off by the baguette. The quality was fine, but a bread this rigid isn't suitable for burger consumption; it's too difficult to focus on the real good. Once I overcame the bread situation, things took a very positive turn. The burger was succulent and overflowed with flavor. The brisket was prominent, but the garlic added a subtle kick that made the taste truly unique. Unsurprisingly, the burger's short life ended quickly that night.
This weekend, I will be in Seattle for a long weekend (thank you, Jewish holiday of Shavuot!). Aside from the typical trips to 
