Big bad burgers

Kate Krader ( @kkrader on Twitter ) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to get our grub on, we listen up.

There’s something about a big burger blow out over the last weekend of summer, when you feel the need to grill as many burger patties as possible. Maybe, though, you’ve already hung up your grilling spatula for the season – maybe you feel like eating dressed up burgers without doing any work. These places are for you.

The marquee dish here is the 777 burger; that name alludes to its $777 price tag. It's a burger made with beef (Kobe) that's topped with lobster (from Maine) , balsamic vinegar (100–year aged) and brie (imported). But the thing that really ratchets up the price tag is the bottle of Rosé Dom Pérignon that’s served alongside; apparently the burger is just $60 without the Dom. We hear it’s very popular with people who literally just hit the jackpot.

Among the less conventional toppings that "Top Chef All-Stars" winner Richard Blais  puts on the burgers at his Flip chain in Atlanta and Birmingham: Swiss cheese foam; seared foie gras; Coca-Cola ketchup. (Not all on the same patty.) Then there’s the steak tartare burger, a mix of hand-chopped filet mignon with garlic, chilis, pickled shallot, smoked mayonnaise and a 6-minute egg. If and when we turn our attention to dressed-up hot dogs , we’ll surely be looking at Blais’s upcoming Atlanta HD-1 Haute Doggery.

There’s still time to get to the fair, which runs until September 5, and which offers the Big Kahuna Donut Burger . At four ounces, it’s not the country’s biggest burger, and toppings are relatively modest. It’s the bun – two halves of a glazed donut  – that gets your attention. And the 1500 calorie count.

Recently I heard rumors of a waffle burger here, specifically a burger patty on a waffle with syrup. Turned out, that was just a special. Not to worry, Hubcap has any number of nifty full-time options, like the sticky burger with bacon, cheese and peanut butter. The sticky monkey burger adds grilled bananas to the mix.

This hip diner garnered a fair amount of attention during its year-plus life. M. Wells shut its doors at the end of August but that doesn’t mean we can’t memorialize their 24-ounce, $42 burger. The burger was a blend of beef and lamb, generously dressed with cheese, caramelized onions and aïoli, served on a correspondingly giant toasted roll. The final touch is genius: onion rings stacked on the large steak knife that stabs the middle of the burger.

Source: http://eatocracy.cnn.com