The Best Burgers In America

NYC is home to countless burgers that are impossible to secure unless you're willing to get in a long line at like, 3pm. But our current pick for the best one in the city is now easier to get than ever. We're talking, of course, about the thick, classic, purist’s delight available at Red Hook Tavern and the bar they recently opened next door. The formula at both places is pretty simple: sesame seed bun, cheese blanket, Big Meat, and slightly sweaty onion. But the quality beef patty is so tender that it falls apart like it had a long day and is eternally grateful to be at home in your mouth.

The most famous burger in LA? A Double-Double at In-N-Out. But here’s an image that we think is just iconic: you, the beach, a bottle of wine, and the glam monster of a burger at Dudley Market. Stacked on a brioche bun, it’s got a juicy pink patty, cheddar cheese, dill aioli, arugula, and caramelized onion-bacon jam. The perfect combo of sweet and savory, briny and peppery, it's what everyone orders after tossing back a few oysters at this Venice Beach hangout. Not only is it the best fancy restaurant burger in town, but it’s one to eat when you want to lean into the LA-ness of it all, complete with palm trees views and celebs wearing sunglasses indoors.

Along with italian beef and a hot dog covered in enough vegetables it could cosplay as a salad, the jibarito is one of the most quintessential dishes of Chicago. And using the classic Puerto Rican sandwich as the blueprint, Smash Jibarito engineers smashburgers that taste equally “Chicago.” They keep the jibarito’s signature flattened-and-fried plantain “buns,” but swap out the usual thinly sliced steak for thin-yet-juicy patties. There are a few variations, but our favorite gives a little nod to In-N-Out, The Estilo Animal: American cheese, crisp pickles, LT (no O), and a tangy housemade Animal sauce that rounds it all out.

The Miami internet algorithm is swarming with videos of angry fists crushing beef patties and slathering them with the same pinkish “secret sauce.” Mesmerizing, yes. But if you took these burgers and put them in a police lineup, we’d easily be able to spot Cowy's truly unique—and incredibly delicious—burgers. These smashburgers are as thin as your patience after waiting in line at the DMV. And while “bacon jam” sounds like the name of a teenage punk band that should really focus on school instead, here it’s the sweet and chunky formula that makes the Cowy burger our favorite one on the menu.

The smashed miso-y majesty at this Guamanian spot in Seattle is coming for all of the burger trophies. Its frizzled edges are so beefy-rich that the patties taste like brown gravy—and meat juice amplifies the effect. The caramelized crust, american cheese, and sauce-seeped bun become one singular essence of burger that all others should look up to. Slow down, however, and you’ll catch the hit of black pepper, a salty swipe of kewpie, or bun bits soaked in drippings. Finely chopped pickles and onions brighten through the grease without getting in the way of what’s important, which is everything else.

Philly's best burger feels like it’s hiding on the menu at River Twice, an experimental tasting menu spot that uses ingredients like koji butter, golden trout roe, and firefly squid in its four-course prix-fixe. What makes the Mother Rucker burger so special are the crispy edges and perfectly-pink middles on the patties, topped with high-quality american cheese, pickled red onions, and mayo. It doesn’t matter that the prix-fixe is four courses. Go ahead and add this one on, too.

There are a handful of spots in Austin making smoked burgers, but our favorite comes from LeRoy And Lewis. Maybe it’s the all-brisket patty that’s thick and peppery with a juicy interior. Maybe it’s the springy potato roll, or the chopped grilled onions that add a little sweetness to each bite. Whatever it is, it’s worth waiting in one of Austin’s famous barbecue lines to get your hands on one.

In addition to being a beloved Minneapolis specialty, the juicy lucy is a heated local controversy, with Matt’s Bar and the 5-8 Club each claiming to be the originator of the cheese-stuffed burger. Although the real answer may be lost to history, Matt’s Bar gets our vote for the nostalgia: they’re still serving it decades later in a narrow, memorabilia-lined space that hasn’t changed much since the restaurant opened in the 1950s. The beef and grilled onions are extra flavorful, probably due to the well-seasoned grill that’s churned out millions of burgers. Just be careful with your first bite: the molten cheese has burned many a tongue.

Lemon pepper gets all the love but Atlanta’s been sneaky-good at burgers for a minute. And nothing in the city tops the ODB at Che Butter Jonez. Like the rapper it's named for, it's an in-your-face burger with a lot of layers. This two-hander is stacked with two thin patties and a bright, herby chimichurri and creamy ají verde. Fried onions add a salty crunch, while the smoked gouda melts into every layer and gives the whole thing a slightly smoky finish.

You’ll be thinking about Xiao Bao’s bao bun burger so often, it’ll start to chase you in your dreams until you go back for another one. It’s nothing short of epic—the american cheese is topped with a garlic, ginger, green onion paste, and dusted with Korean chili flakes. The bao holds on for dear life but is no match for the grease. It’s the kind of burger that necessitates picking it up and eating the whole thing at once, rather than putting it down multiple times. And even if you’re picking up pieces of cheesy, red-and-green-kissed beef to drop into your mouth, it’ll still be delicious.

SF is flush with flattened beef, though none are quite as good—or as spicy—as the Bird’s Eye burger from Maillards. The farmers market stall quickly developed a fanatical following thanks to their hand-pressed patties with the standard pickles, cheese, and shallots, but when they turned brick-and-mortar they added this spice bomb to the lineup, and we’re forever grateful. The shallots remain (fried instead of grilled for some crunch), ginger herb salad is plugged in for some brightness, and Thai chili aioli is added to deliver a tongue-jolting kick.

Purists will sound off in the comments, but the burger at Perry’s doesn’t involve a cow. Inspired by the chef’s favorite McDonald’s order from her childhood in Japan, this is a deep-fried shrimp patty covered with cheddar and sitting on a layer of slaw and a milk bread bun. The togarashi tartar sauce gives it a slight tangy kick, and the shrimp itself is chunky and juicy inside the crispy shell of breading.

Some Houston burgers come piled with extras. Better Luck Tomorrow is proof you don’t need all that. The Everyday Cheeseburger looks straightforward, but someone clearly spent time getting the little things right: a thick house-ground patty with a deep, hard sear, a blanket of american cheese melting into the edges, a bright lemony mayo-style sauce, and a toasty, buttery bun. Even the house pickle spear makes an impression—crunchy, briny, and with a little kick. Add the “Texan” version with yellow mustard and pickled jalapeños, grab a frozen gin martini, and order the bruléed parmesan fondue. Officially, it’s for your fries. Unofficially, you’re putting it on the burger.

No other city in America has a Balkan Treat Box. That’s because only St. Louis has 50,000 Bosnians—and without them, you don’t get the wood-grilled pljeskavica. This absolute unit of a burger weighs in at over 9 ounces, not counting the golf ball of molten cheese hidden in its center. It also comes in a freshly baked somun bun and topped with smoky red pepper ajvar, a dollop of creamy kajmak, and shaved white onion. Keep in mind that this burger takes no prisoners: you will not be able to go back to work after this. Hell, your life might never be the same.

Outside of Ben & Jerry’s annual Free Cone Day, Vermonters don’t line up for food—with a population the size of Luxembourg, the numbers just aren’t there. But on Saturdays at the Burlington Farmers Market, a crowd gathers at Grass Cattle Company’s tent, trying to figure out how to stand single file. Most have dogs, some aren’t wearing shoes. They’re all waiting for burgers. The farm serves thick, straight-from-the-source patties of mixed brisket, chuck, round, shoulder and trim. The farmer, who’s usually holding court, can tell you what the herd ate. The move is the breakfast burger, which adds a crispy fried egg (also from the farm) and comes on an English muffin from a market vendor a few tents away. It’s Vermont in a burger: fiercely local with deep reverence for cows.

KC is a cow town where a paper towel roll on the table is a better indicator of quality than cloth napkins, so it may be surprising that the best burger is actually downtown in the Gothic lobby of a historic hotel that once hosted flappers and presidents. The place is either totally packed or completely empty, and service can be so spotty that we sometimes ask ourselves if a burger that reminds us of a certain golden-arched fast food restaurant could really be worth all the trouble. The answer is always yes. It’s a delicious mess with a cream cheese and white cheddar blend that’s perfectly balanced with acid from house-pickled onions.

Reminders of Cincinnati’s past as the pork processing capital of the world are everywhere—from the “Porkopolis” nickname to the fiberglass pigs around town to the annual Flying Pig Marathon. What’s old is new again at The Pickled Pig, where the kitchen is breaking down whole hogs from local farms and turning the hams and trimmings into the juiciest burger in the metro. Coarsely ground and loosely packed, the Pig’s pork patty comes blanketed in gouda from a creamery five minutes down the road and heaped with the fermentory-turned-restaurant’s own effervescent kimchi. This new Porkopolis classic packs so much local flavor between a squishy potato bun that you’ll never miss the beef.

Oklahoma might be known for its flat-top smashburgers, but we’d argue that the two-hander at the Tavern is the burger actually worth eating if you find yourself in cattle country. The Tavern’s chefs went 12 rounds on the recipe, pressure-testing it beyond reproach for optimal balance, ingredient layering, and meat-to-bun ratio. They finally landed on a half-pound blend of short rib, chuck, and brisket topped with tangy globs of stilton and some gravy-like mushroom and cognac cream steakhouse sauce drizzled on top—all packed into a bun made of sweet challah bread. It’s rich as hell, hasn’t changed in 15 years, and is heralded as the burger that made dining downtown (and even the Arts District itself) a thing.