The Bad Apple
Craig Fass and Mandy Franklin (Menagerie, Cooper’s) opened their beer and burger bar the Bad Apple a scant half block south of the venerable Jury’s, and while that institution attracts a decidedly different crowd, its burger is formidable and has been justly recognized as such for years. Now, with the Bad Apple shipping in a custom-ground beef mix from New York wholesale butcher Pat La Frieda, it’s difficult not to imagine a gauntlet has been thrown down between the generations gathering on each side of Lincoln Avenue. In various instances Cass and Franklin see fit to bedeck their pedigreed beef with lily-gilding school-of-Kuma’s-type arrangements, offering options like pulled pork and onion rings, ham and eggs, ham and pineapple, etc. But I’d say Jury’s has little to worry about in the burger department. Accessorizing all of these sandwiches are golden brown hand-cut fries available in seven different flavors (truffle, curry, Old Bay, etc). Where the Bad Apple clearly has the upper hand over Jury’s—and most likely every other place in the neighborhood—is in its extensive and diverse beer selection. Beginning on May 20, lunch will be available from Thursday through Sunday. —Mike Sula
More than 25 years after the heyday of the SNL skit, the Billy Goat is still trading on John Belushi’s famous tagline, “Cheezborger, cheezborger, cheezborger. No Pepsi, Coke. No fries, cheeps.” Tourists continue to find their way into the subterranean dive under Michigan Avenue, and journalists remain among the regulars, drinking and risking heartburn against a backdrop of yellowing Royko columns and Billy Goat curse memorabilia. The cheeseburgers, flat and greasy, are probably best ordered in the form of a double, but they’re helped along by raw onion and an unlimited supply of dill pickle slices. —Kate Schmidt
Users like the low prices and the big burgers, which come in everything from plain to the namesake Boston Blackie Burger, with bacon and caramelized onions. “It is undeniably delicious and filling,” says one, “and you can walk out for under $8 a person.” Another likes the deco-inspired room, saying it’s “kind of like a place where old-time Chicago gangsters would have met up.” And in fact, the owner and his son have been charged with bank fraud in a multimillion-dollar check-kiting scheme. —Holly Greenhagen
There must be some latent anti-west coast bias in me that initially led me to smirk at the idea of a bunless “burger bowl,” what the folks behind exploding Santa Monica burger chain the Counter call what is essentially a burger salad. But the two I sampled were really tasty. And that’s the thing—if the natural beef patties here are all as consistently seasoned and cooked to order as the ones I’ve tried, then a bad burger can really only be blamed on the decisions of the customer. But building a burger from a clipboard list of options—with more than 312,120 possible combinations—is a daunting proposition, and the potential for crimes against nature is enormous. It’s possible, for instance, to order a one-pound veggie burger with Danish blue cheese, hard-boiled eggs, grilled pineapple, corn-and-black-bean salsa, carrot strings, honey-cured bacon, and peanut sauce on an English muffin. However, if you feel incapable of wielding that power responsibly, the house Counter burger—with provolone, lettuce, tomato, fried onions, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomato vinaigrette—is an excessive and reliably good default. —Mike Sula
I’m more than little sad that David Morton and Michael Kornick’s most enjoyable contribution to the burger boom is nothing beefier than a nicely sagey turkey patty with smoked Swiss, arugula, and Dijonaise. DMK wants to be the burger place for everyone, offering a house-molded veggie option, two turkeys, a lamb, a portobello mushroom, and now a salmon burger in addition to six grass-finished beef varieties. But Kornick and Morton (son of Morton’s founder Arnie) have clearly taken a cue from the architecturally topped burgers pioneered by Kuma’s Corner. While it makes good business sense, the patties favored at DMK can’t stand up to heavy strata of toppings. These are skinny burgers: five ounces, cooked medium. And any flavor or subtlety to the beef is submerged under the equivalent of a Reuben or an order of huevos rancheros or layers of bacon, cheddar, and BBQ sauce. Even DMK’s pleasantly gamy grass-fed lamb patty disappears between salty layers of feta, black olive tapenade, and tzatziki. Fries, offered in an almost equally varied selection of flavors and sauces, are more appealing—well browned and crisp. Deep-fried pickles and okra, onion strings, and two choices of grilled cheese join house-made soda, ice cream sandwiches, and lumpy milk shakes to complete a set of referents to burger drive-ins past. But they haunt a slick, dark bar with an extensive beer list, two custom wines, and “classic” cocktails such as negronis and sazeracs denatured with rocks and blasphemously sugared around the rims. —Mike Sula
