RICHMOND, Va. — According to Wikipedia, a burger is a “sandwich consisting of one or more cooked patties of ground meat, usually beef, placed inside a sliced bread roll or bun. The patty may be pan fried, barbecued, or flame broiled.” Finding the best burger is a lifestyle in Richmond. Even the fanciest of restaurants in the city have a burger as an entree, leaving no shortage of opinion on whose patty is the best.
Together (again!), Samantha Kanipe (of The Richmond Experience) and I have compiled the 10 best burgers in all of Richmond.
All of the non-vegan/vegetarian burgers are 100 percent beef, no fillers or preservatives.
Want to try a bunch of burgers to make your own list? You’re in luck. It’s Burger Week in Richmond and a couple of our BEST are on this burger week list.
Food Truck/Pop-up Spot Burgers
Cobra Burger
What is the Cobra Burger? It’s hefty, juicy and uber-beefy Virginia beef, potato rolls, American cheese, pickled onions and homemade pickles.
Get the fries; they are fried in beef fat and it’s worth eating two orders.
If you have not made it to this wily, roaming burger pop-up, your time is now, well soon, anyway. The next one is July 6 at Salt & Forge.
Go Go Vegan Go
What happens when Municipal Waste drummer Dave Witte and April Viar start a food truck?
One of the best vegan burgers in the city, The Hoppe Chez Burger.
The burger is an instant classic with a bun toasted crisp, a smashed Beyond Burger patty and vegan chez, lettuce and tomato.
Restaurant options
Saison
This substantial burger is all grass-fed and finished.
Chef Adam Hall makes his own smoked American cheese using wine and salt to get a gooey texture.
Hall dehydrates ramps (similar to a spring onion but a bit funkier) all season to make a ramp Ranch and then adds Bibb lettuce and pickles.
Southbound
Nothing thin or flimsy about this double cheese burger.
Chef Craig Perkinson adds tomato bacon jam to an all grain-fed beef smashed double patty along with white American cheese then slides it on a brioche bun.
The decadence comes with a house-made dill spear and shoestring fries.
Brenner Pass
Chef Brittanny Anderson combines ground brisket and short rib to create a weighty (and delightfully drippy from the cheese, more on that in a minute) burger.
It’s completed with thoughtful accouterments, speck (think fancy bacon), frisee (an endive/lettuce), pickles. and a house-made sesame bun.
And the cheese, a gooey, part-Gruyere white fondue.
For burger purists
Luther Burger
The smash burger from the group behind Sugar Shack has started to garner a little following — the concept is simple and satisfying: a beef burger, cheese, onion, lettuce, and tomato.
Roy’s Big Burger
A narrow patty smashed on a seasoned grill (since 1961) only comes one way — cooked the way they want it.
Get a single, double, triple or quad, though if you aren’t into a real thin burger —- you should definitely add another.
Go all the way though— ketchup, pickles, onions, lettuce and tomato —it’s really the only way.
The Bacon Cheddar Inside Out Burger is the way to go — a 1/4 pound beef patty with Bacon and Cheddar mixed inside the burger and then again on top. ($4.99) If you are a burger purist, you can go single hand-pressed burger with cheese for a mere $3.79. If you are into a cheese skirt (crispy edges on your cheese slice, the sign of a well-used and oiled grill), this is your spot.
For the vegetarian/vegans
The Kinda Vegan Beet Burger can be substituted for a meat option at CBB.
Shredded, well-seasoned beets don’t make up a patty, per se, but are more akin to a pulled pork sandwich texturally.
The taste, however, rich and satisfying.
What’s the best burger you’ve had in Richmond? Let us know.
