Our dining editors put their tastebuds—and waistlines—to the test, sampling 110 burgers around Minneapolis and St. Paul to bring you the best burgers in four key categories

August 2009

Burgers are the new food obsession:
cheap, protein-packed, and the subject of intense debate. This is the year of the burger in the Twin Cities, and we are under a deluge of ground meat. They smash it, they stuff it, they baste it, they burn it. The quest for the perfect one never ends. When Burger Jones opened in May, it was quickly hit with crowds demanding 1,200 burgers a day from a kitchen designed to turn out 600 at best. The Twittering was intense (@BurgerJones: 3 Hour Wait! No!).

We divided our search for the perfect burger into four categories: thin burgers—patties of a quarter-pound and under, your standard fast food–style burger; luxury burgers—a half-pound-plus, frequently made from specialized beef grinds, naturally raised or grass-fed, adorned with exotic cheeses or packed with flavor enhancers, from onion to demi-glace to short-rib shreds; tavern-style burgers—the traditional medium grease burgers of five to eight ounces that are offered in better bars and restaurants; and Juicy Lucys—the local creation stuffed with cheese, griddled, and served with a molten interior.

We tasted 110 burgers and lived to tell about it. By the time we got done, we learned a lot, including whether Mr. Jones had reinvented the meaty wheel (alas, no). The rest of the answers are inside. Don’t squeeze too hard, lest the cheese squirt out the other end.

OUR JUDGES: Food and dining editor Adam Platt, food editor Stephanie March, and blogger/chef/caterer Philip Dorwart