Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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N o matter what city I'm in, no matter how expensive the restaurant, I order a burger if the menu has one. Even did this in Amsterdam a couple summers ago, after spending an afternoon in one of the "cofee shops" with oontz-oontz techno. In the Netherlands, the word "Hamburger" scrawled on a chalkboard comforted me. (Not a chance the thing was as juicy as it is in my memory.) You have a favorite burger in town. Everybody does. You're opinionated about it, too. Only one way to settle it: Spend a month eating a burger (or in one instance, four burgers) a day in a quest to fnd the best one in Louisville. I wanted to know the answer but also hoped to determine the 10 or so I could order without feeling buyer's remorse at the sight of other people's dishes. My personal top 10. Beef. Tat was the only rule. For a level playing feld, it had to be beef. So apologies to the one made of bison at Proof, of lamb at Hillbilly Tea, of elk at Hammerheads. (A date with the meatloaf burger at the Village Anchor will be in my near future.) Of course, I couldn't make it to every single spot. I focused on places I'd never been and standbys I thought could compete for the top spot. Places whose burgers I've enjoyed and will eat again but that I didn't have on this adventure: Back Door, Drake's, Shenanigans, Stooges, Troll Pub — I could do this all day because what restaurant doesn't have one? Even Shiraz does. I usually eat kabobs there. Tis city sufers from "OCD," which on the T-shirts at Mussel and Burger Bar stands for "Obsessive Cow Disorder." Day one W.W. Cousins (900 Dupont Road) I've lived in Louisville for six and a half years. Many lifers swear by this place. Readers of the magazine have picked W.W. Cousins as the top in town time every time we've run a burger category in our Best of Louisville awards. Only a handful of parking spaces are unoccupied. Inside, a man at the counter speaks into a microphone, sounding like a Bingo caller. "Eddie B., your order is ready. Eddie B." Linda E., Adam F., Eric C. A woman with a to-go order is wearing a Jack Fry's T-shirt. Good sign. A burger costs six bucks, 50 cents more for cheese. Included: the Toppings Bar, which deserves capital letters, as much as people talk about it. Sour cream, whipped margarine, "salad dressing," mayonnaise, hot sauce, jalapeño peppers, banana peppers, bananas the fruit (OK, not the last one, but would that really surprise you?). "Josh M., your order is ready. Josh M." I try the meat, no toppings. (Tis is something I'll do over the course of the month and will continue to do on my lifelong burger-eating voyage. Because if the meat's no good, you're really just eating toppings.) Te patty is drywall in need of paint splatters. I treat the blank canvas like Jackson Pollock. Te foppy bun disintegrates. W.W. Cousins opened in 1983. It reminds me of Skyline Chili, founded in my hometown of Cincinnati. Each bite of Skyline takes me back to my childhood. When I bring an out-of-towner to Skyline and he describes the chili as watery, I don't really blame him. To him, it doesn't taste like nostalgia. He doesn't remember eating there with his dad. W.W. Cousins probably has a similar efect on Louisvillians. Day two Four Pegs Beer Lounge (1053 Goss Ave.) For $11: bacon, fried green tomatoes, Cheddar and American cheeses, and a rich beer glaze that oozes all over the paper inside the plastic basket. Never before have friends been so genuinely curious about a story I was working on. One tells me to look no further than the Big Buford at Rally's. Another texts me a photo of the burger at the Brewery on Baxter Avenue ("I took some of the lettuce of after the pic. Had bacon & egg also…"), which is right across the street from where I play sand volleyball. Te referee overhears me talking about this piece and says, "Honestly, my favorite burger in town is Burger King. I like fame-broiled." He also complains about how Chick-fl-A clumps all the pickles in one spot on its chicken sandwich. I'm 29. My wife's due with our frst kid on New Year's Eve. At some point, I must stop being an idiot. But honestly, eating a burger a day for a month, with a side of fries almost every time, is not that diferent from my normal diet. I buy those plastic tubs of spinach at Kroger, and most of the leaves turn black sitting in my refrigerator. Now that I think about it, most of the vegetables I consume come from the "dressed" part of burgers anyway. You'd think I'd wonder what my doctor would say about this story, but I haven't seen him in more than six years. I do know I don't want to have a heart attack. At least that thought crosses my mind. Tat's progress. I'm growing up. Day three Bluegrass Burgers (3334 Frankfort Ave.) Te meat is grass-fed Kentucky black Angus, which means the cow smiled a lot, probably had a vacation home in Destin, Fla., before cashing in its 401(k) and retiring between a bun. Te toppings bar: avocado, pineapple salsas, sweet relish, pickled ginger, carrots. It trumps the one at W.W. Cousins because, well, what is "salad dressing"? Day four Mussel and Burger Bar (9200 Taylorsville Road) It's sort of like standing in line for a roller coaster: As long as the ride delivers, you don't remember the wait. One group of 17 actually cheers when a hostess says she can seat their party. Te tablecloths are brown butcher paper; the "plates" are wooden cutting boards. On the menu, well-done equals the letters "RIP" above an overturned cow icon. Te C.E.O. costs $15, comes with Gruyère, trufe aioli, caramelized onions, baby arugula, conft tomatoes. Seven bucks more for foie gras. Tat'd be $22, the high end in this city. I go basic with the Good Ole: Cheddar, red onions, tomato, lettuce, pretzel bun. Less than a half hour before close, though, the kitchen has run out of pretzels. I sob into the buttery roll it comes on. Te little pile of sweet pickles complements the tender meat, ground in-house and seasoned with little more than pepper and sea salt. "Te favor's in the fat, keeps it juicy," says Fernando Martinez, who runs the place. You know Martinez as the guy who has never opened an unsuccessful restaurant in this city. Havana Rumba, Mojito, Guaca Mole. He's 40, born in Cuba. Tat's where he learned to cook. When he was 19, he fed to America with his mother and seven friends on a homemade raft — "inner tubes, rope, wood. Kon-Tiki-style," Martinez says. Tey spent a year at Guantanamo Bay as refugees before Catholic Charities got them to San Diego. "I loved Jack in the Box," Martinez says. "I would eat nine, 10 Jack in the Box burgers." In Cuba, Martinez says, "it was illegal to kill your own cows, so I didn't eat a lot of meat from a cow." He came to Louisville in '96. Why are burgers on basically every menu now? "People were craving a good one," he says. "And what's more American than a burger?" 10.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 57