The Elmwood Burger

Ah, Elmwood burger. You are a special burger, indeed. The kind of burger I treat myself with when I’ve been a good boy. Or if I’ve had a bad day. The kind of burger I get when my girlfriend is busy and then when she asks what I ate, I tell her I just had vegetables. Then I text owner Chris Kelling and tell him if he rats me out, I will end him.

To describe it simply, I’d say it’s the half-Korean cousin of classic "Western burger.” You know, onion rings, bacon, BBQ sauce. But not really that stuff. The onion rings have been replaced with crispy fried shallots—if you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you go to any of the international groceries and buy a container of them and put them on everything you cook. Instead of your typical, cloyingly sweet BBQ sauce, they make a slightly fiery Korean BBQ sauce. I asked chef/owner Adam Altnether to describe it: “It’s a three day process of cooking a beef jus that ends with the addition of apple cider vinegar, Korean soy sauce, and gochujang. Now please leave the kitchen, we’re in the middle of service.” The sauce, as you can tell from the photo above, is much thinner than Sweet Baby Ray’s, so yes, this is a slightly messy burger. If you’re eating with other people, it’s almost certainly a knife-and-fork burger. If you’re dining alone, go wild.

The final toppings are iceberg lettuce and American cheese. Altnether, always innovating, flips the burger so the cheese goes on the bottom. This allows the sauce to really permeate the burger and not just run off. Genius, this boy is.

The real star of the show is Chris Kelling’s suit collection—wait, no. The star of the show is obviously the patty. You can’t make a special burger with garbage meat. The 35-day dry aged beef comes from Flannery Farms’ Holstein cattle, typically used for dairy. Adam tells me, “Holsteins tend to have less exterior fat and much more intramuscular fat.” I wish I was more like a Holstein.

Vying for the title of Burger King, Adam has chosen to flame broil the burgers in their wildly hot Josper grill/oven. The finished product is a slightly smoky, kinda spicy, classic-but-not burger. I recommend you grab a seat at the bar and dig in while drinking a cocktail from Dave Greteman. Oh, and you have to order a side of the super crispy potatoes with harissa.

Elmwood Burger

korean bbq sauce, bacon, fried shallots, american cheese, pickles