Anyway, there’s no place like North Texas to eat a burger. We’ve got so many it’s almost useless to try to choose the “best.” Best old-fashioned diner-style burger? Best double cheeseburger? Best gourmet burger? There are too many to choose from.
So here are six recent favorites of mine, from locally owned businesses and representing a variety of styles. As always when people ask about burgers, I offer the caveat that you could do a whole best-burger list without ever leaving the premises of Knife on Mockingbird Lane (see photo above). Start there, and then work through these six contenders, plus a bonus recipe of my own.
The Notorious
Invasion, East DallasInvasion won our hearts with its charitable mindset, but it won our bellies with its mountainous sandwiches. My favorite is the Notorious, a burger with pizza-like undertones. It’s stuffed with onions, jalapeños and gooey mozzarella, then topped with a crispy flash-cooked basil leaf. The burger patty itself is as thick as a fist, and, as Martha Stewart would say if she ever tucked a bib into her collar and tried to take this sucker down, that’s a good thing.
The Funky Burger
Funky Picnic Brewery, Fort WorthJust look at that beauty, with its black-and-white sesame seed bun and its housemade potato chips on the side. Funky Picnic makes a diverse range of good beers — I dug the Mexican lager — and the kitchen makes its pimento cheese, too. The only complaint I have is that after I finished my cheeseburger, on a night shortly after getting my second vaccine, they pulled down a projector and started showing The Phantom Menace. That was probably a one-time thing, so the dining room is probably safe again now.
The K Town
LA Burger, Six Locations in the Suburbs
LA Burger has a cadre of kimchi-heavy options, from burgers to fries and Asian-fusion tacos.
Kathy Tran
Build Your Own Cheeseburger
Sky Rocket Burger, Deep EllumPicky burger eater? Want mustard but no mayo, double onions, no pickle and extra sauce? Sky Rocket’s online ordering system for its Deep Ellum location can accommodate every request. Better yet, we’re talking about some of the most textbook-perfect burgers in the city. I feel like I’m saying this in every blurb, but: Just look at it!
Plus, if you’re taking your meal to go, you can ask for the fries extra crispy.
Anything with Hot Peppers
Porky’s Burgers and Wings, Mesquite
The Full Moon burger at Porky's with pickles, onions, mushrooms, jalapeños and a generous amount of American cheese
Nick Rallo
The Kahuna Burger
Peak Inn, Old East Dallas
The Kahuna burger at the Peak Inn has a slaw, under good crinkle-cut pickles, tossed in a house-made Thousand Island for $7.
Nick Rallo
Honesty time: I haven’t tried this one. It’s on my own personal to-do list based on this love letter to Peak Inn penned by expert burger hunter and world’s leading sandwich consumer Nick Rallo. Quoth the eater: “Peak Inn knows the power of good grease — all of those toppings sit proudly under the smoky patty as beef juices come down like rain from a tin roof. It’s a spectacular burger, and it’s seven bucks.” Heck, maybe this is what I’ll order tonight.
Bonus: Make Your Own Feta Lamburger at Home
Here’s a rough sketch recipe derived from my American burger-grilling dad and Turkish kebab-making mom. Take some ground lamb — the fattiest package you can find, mixing in some 80/20 ground beef if all the lamb at the store is lean. Throw it in a big bowl and season it with salt, black pepper, cumin and Aleppo pepper (a very mild crushed red pepper you can find at Sara’s, Central Market or other spice shops). Mix things up and create your burger patty portions.
Cook them how you like them — on a grill or in a cast-iron skillet, probably — and serve with a toasted bun and sliced good summer tomatoes. For the feta relish on top, crumble up good feta cheese with chopped parsley and red onions. Boom. Delicious.
