Las Vegas Weekly

Beef, bison, veal or veggie; french fries, onions, blue cheese or lobster; potato rolls, slider buns or rye bread …

10 great burgers you can chow down on in Vegas

People get emotional when it comes to their favorite burger. At Father’s Office in Los Angeles, the burger joint du moment in that city, chef Sang Yoon has them lining up to eat his burger with bacon, onion and Gruyere cheese, and he totally forbids the use of ketchup.

The prototypical slider, invented by the chain White Castle, still reduces fans to nostalgic tears. The Varsity in Atlanta, which bills itself as the world’s largest drive-in, serves chili burgers that are, in my experience, unequalled anywhere. And then there are those stupid high-roller burgers topped with foie gras, black truffles and similar indulgences. To those I say, bravo, and who cares.

Everyone, it seems, has their preference, from how they like their meat cooked to the almost infinite number of permutations with regard to toppings. Unfortunately, after the E. coli outbreak during the ’90s, it became virtually impossible to get a burger dripping in its own blood at a chain establishment. You know, liability and all that.

So you can have it your way at Burger King, but you can’t have it rare. If you want to have one cooked that way, though, you can probably get it at a steakhouse, where burgers are usually ground fresh daily from top-quality meats. Almost every major steakhouse has a burger on the menu, from Outback to pricier places such as Cut, Wolfgang Puck’s place at the Palazzo.

Here are 10 of my favorite burgers in the city, most of them less than $10, except for the sliders and the super deluxe Kobe burger at N9Ne. I’m sure I’ve left yours out, and am going to hear about it.

Double Double

at In-N-Out

Multiple locations, 800-786-1000

Hovering at just under three dollars and costing their faithful around 670 calories (unless you order one protein-style, substituting leaf lettuce for the sponge dough bun), this glorious sandwich settles, for me at least, the debate about the best chain burger. If you like a fried egg, Wimpy style, then you’ll have to content yourself with the second-best chain, Fatburger.

But that’ll be me in the never-ending line at your local In-N-Out, waiting for my two never-frozen beef patties, two slices of American cheese, lettuce, tomato, spread (akin to a Thousand Island dressing) and the option of grilled onions, at no extra charge. I brought a three-Michelin-star chef, Guy Savoy, here, and watched him wolf one down, even if he asked for it without cheese, along with the fries, which he pronounced “excellent.”

Kobe Burger

at N9Ne Steakhouse

Inside the Palms, 942-7777

At $25, this is the most expensive burger on our list. It’s also, in the words of N9Ne Executive Chef Barry Dakake, “the best deal on our menu.”

I’m not in a mood to argue. This magnificent burger is a real meal, almost enough to share, and one of the best burgers I’ve ever tasted. Dakake pulls out all the stops. First, the meat is Oregon Snake River Farms Kobe, moist and juicy, cooked to specifications.

The bun is a potato roll spread with soft butter and mayo, and the sandwich is rounded out with burnt onion splashed with balsamic vinegar, organic leaf lettuce, tomato and a pale green, extra virgin olive oil so fresh it’s positively prepubescent.

Would that it ended there. There is also aged cheddar and apple-smoked bacon on the side, as well as homemade ketchup, French fries stacked up like Lincoln Logs and blue-cheese coleslaw. Crowning the show is a whole, half-sour dill pickle. Who needs steak?

Patty Melt

at Kilroy’s

1021 S. Buffalo Drive, 363-4933; 4340 S. Grand Canyon Drive, 367-3184

Kilroy’s is sort of a local legend for burgers, and indeed, I am including it on this list to pay homage to its legion of fans. I’m not saying the burgers here do not live up to their billing. I’m just saying that I found nothing extraordinary about them.

Having said that, I like the place. It has a nice, relaxed feel and lots of good beers, and the burgers are half-pounders cooked to order, just the way you like them. First among equals here, in my book, is the patty melt, a burger topped with onions and Swiss cheese on rye bread that is grilled in butter. Kilroy’s patty melt, one of dozens of burger choices here, is delicious, served with a choice of sloppy baked beans or blandoid coleslaw.

For an extra $1.65, you can upgrade your burger to include fries. Hey, that’s extortion.

Half Pound Burger

at Adam’s Ribs

4770 S. Maryland Pkwy. 242-8227

Anyone who knows veteran Vegas restaurant owner and adjunct UNLV prof Adam Carmer knows that he is a maniac for quality, so you wouldn’t expect his burger to be, well, an ordinary one. And it isn’t.

One of the things that makes his burger special is the braiding. Braiding, I hear you ask? Well, it seems that the meat is ground in a special two-pronged contraption and is braided together, then hand-formed to order, resulting in an uncommonly tender burger.

But the other touches are impressive as well. The burgers are rubbed in a complex spice rub with sweet aromatics, and then served on a fresh sesame bun with all the trimmings.

On the side, however, are two things that embellish this burger with a flourish. One is a whole pickle, not a spear, of mysterious provenance, with a wicked bite. The other is best described as a cooked onion and mushroom stew, which crowns this burger like royalty.

Turkey Burger

at BLT Burger

Inside the Mirage, 791-7111

The just-opened BLT Burger stands on the spot once home to Siegfried and Roy’s White Tigers at the Mirage. Today, the space has been utterly transformed by David Rockwell into a modern diner with a raised, open hickory pit grill surrounded by red brick walls.

Uber-chef Laurent Tourandel, who started BLT Steak both in New York and LA, and who once cooked at the late, lamented Palace Court at Caesars, spent three years planning this concept, and the meticulousness has paid off. Burgers like his signature BLT, a seven-ounce beauty, and a veggie burger that tastes like a falafel are fine, as are the spiked milk shakes.

But this is the best turkey burger around: moist, juicy and spiked with herbs, onion and green pepper ground into the mixture. Add toppings like a fried egg, homemade chili and sliced avocado to the chewy onion roll, and you’ve got the perfect coda to what is now an unassailably first-rate burger town.

Bison Burger

at Burger Bar

At Mandalay Place, 632-7777

Credit chef Hubert Keller of Fleur de Lys in Mandalay Bay for the upscale burger craze in Vegas. Every time I walk past his restaurant, Burger Bar, there is a line out the door.

Like his famous colleague Daniel Boulud, who has restaurants here and in New York, and who invented the super-deluxe foie gras and truffle burger, Keller reinvents the wheel here as well. Yes, Keller has created something called the Rossini burger, topped with foie gras and truffles, as well as burgers made from turkey and, of course, beef. Add a huge list of toppings, from beetroot to Kalamata olives to various and sundry cheeses, and you’ve entered burger nirvana.

But the last time I dined here—with the chef, I might add, he was eating a bison burger, a low-fat, high-flavor piece of meat that made me wonder why I wasn’t having it. The bison meat is ground to order, and is superb with a touch of Dijon mustard. This is a burger you can enjoy without the worry about cholesterol and hormones.

Lamb Burger

at Le Burger Brasserie

Inside Paris Las Vegas, 946-7000

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, than Keller and Boulud must be happy that Le Burger Brasserie, in the Paris, offers a $777 burger made from Kobe beef and lobster, topped with Brie, prosciutto, caramelized onion and 100-year-old Balsamic vinegar. Oh, and yes, it comes with a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon Rose.

This place is where I get my lamb-burger fix, because happily, they, unlike Keller, have not taken it off their menu. Anyway, the components are as good as the meat. House rolls are chewy and delicious, especially the oven-dried tomato ciabatta. Choose your toppings, like goat cheese, cranberry jam or other exotica. And for dessert, save room for a brioche donut, filled with custard and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Veggie Burger

at Claim Jumper

601 N. Green Valley Parkway, Henderson, 933-0880;



1100 S. Fort Apache Road, 243-8751;



At Town Square, 270-2509

The California-based Claim Jumper is technically a chain, but not a burger chain, so I am including it for its delicious veggie burger, which uses a Boca patty. I can’t tell I’m not eating meat, and for a carnivore like me, that’s a big draw. It is for vegetarians, too.

Claim Jumper is renowned for huge portions, and creative burgers like one named the Widow Maker, which I wouldn’t be, if you don’t mind the pun, caught dead eating. The veggie burger comes topped with smoked Gouda (which vegans can leave off, because the soy-based patty is acceptable for them), caramelized onion, avocado, cucumber and a nice garlicky mayonnaise, on a huge hunk of toasted wheat bread.

The one caveat is salt. A four-ounce Boca burger contains 1130 milligrams of the stuff, which is roughly 48 percent of the recommended daily allowance. Nothing, as you know, is free.

Veal Sliders

at Brand

Inside the Monte Carlo, 730-7777

The newest restaurant from the Light Group follows a similar formula that has made its sister restaurants, Fix and Stack, a success. Chef Brian Massie is nothing if not creative, a force of nature, really, and some of his star dishes here, such as an amazing baked stuffed Maine lobster, are the foods that reputations get built on.

But I’ll come back again for his veal sliders, served two to an order with crisp seasoned fries in a paper cone. The sliders come on yeasty, buttery homemade buns, topped simply with pickled shallots. The meat is at once juicy and yielding, milder than its beefy cousin and properly marbled with fat. Rumor has it that Massie makes a mean lamb slider, but is not putting it out there for his fans. Seriously, dude, how about doing the lamb thing, too?