Photo: Marina Oliphant
Rockpool Bar & Grill
GONE are the days of burgers trimmed with tinned pineapple and an egg fried in a ring. Burgers, like many other foods, have gone upmarket and gourmet.
Think duck egg, marbled beef and Swiss cheese, occasionally with a price tag that elsewhere would buy you four flake, 10 potato cakes and two burgers with the lot.
Wagyu beef is the star of this show, elevating the humble grease-layered feast to the upper echelons of restaurants awarded hats in The Age Good Food Guide.
From the bar menu at Neil Perry's Rockpool (no reservation required), David Blackmore's full-blood wagyu beef burger is one of the best: brioche bun, magnificent wagyu beef patty cooked to your liking, Gruyere cheese, house-made Zuni pickle, Schulz house-smoked bacon and relish ($18).
Order it with hand-cut chips ($8) or red onion rings in tempura batter served with house-made ketchup ($9). Meat has never tasted so good.
Rockpool, Crown Complex, Southbank, phone 8648 1900.
STILL in award-winning restaurant territory, Vue de Monde's little sister, Cafe Vue, has a tasty pocket rocket of a burger, perfect for lunch.
In a lightly toasted, sesame-seeded bun lie green leaves, a seasoned wagyu beef patty, bacon, cheddar, house-made mayonnaise and tomato sauce — it's a winner.
Served with French fries and a dollop of rocking horse on the side for $12, it's at the cheaper end of gourmet burgers.
Cafe Vue, 430 Little Collins Street, city, phone 9691 3899.
MY DINING companion declared the Station burger one of the best he's had. It helps, too, that the Station Hotel is an old-fashioned pub — read no shiny concrete floors or architect-designed toilets — which makes it something of a dying breed.
Here, the open burger consists of toasted ciabatta bread, one half generously smeared with tarragon-spiked bearnise sauce, a thick, juicy meat patty, bacon and free-range egg.
The other half holds dressed green leaves, tomato and red onion. It costs $18. This stellar combination is served with thin chips and two large onion rings, a nod to pub days of old. Brilliant.
Station Hotel, 59 Napier Street, Footscray, phone 9687 2913.
THE burger served at South Yarra's Botanical, a restaurant awarded two hats in The Age Good Food Guide, is posh nosh.
A wagyu beef patty is served in a lightly toasted brioche bun layered with a gooey, organic duck egg, rocket, fried pancetta, pickle and house-made tomato relish.
Just 50 cents shy of $30, with fries on the side for $8, it's a true gourmet burger for grown-ups.
Botanical, 169 Domain Road, South Yarra, phone 9820 7888.
MUCH has been committed to ink about the Tolarno burger. Short version — it was made famous at the old Tolarno Hotel in St Kilda, and when TV cook and restaurateur Iain Hewitson moved up the road to open Barney Allen's, he took it with him. And for good reason, people love it. This burger is very Huey, with many ingredients (beef patty, caramelised onion, lettuce, tomato, tomato and beetroot chutney, aioli, parmesan, cheddar and crisp bacon), and accompanying bottled condiment in the way of a "kick-arse" barbecue sauce. But it all works a treat and for $12, or $14.50 with fries, is a mighty nice feed.
Barney Allen's, 14 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, phone 9525 5477.
