There was a time when a satisfying meal meant a greasy burger eaten with a large dollop of pumpkin sauce at a small college canteen. The buns and the vegetable patty were fried, but the onion rings and tomato slices that embraced the patty were fresh and gave a crunch to the burger. Those were simple days, when gourmet burger was an oxymoron.
Cut to today, and I am overwhelmed by the kind of burgers that chefs are offering us. A few days ago, I tried out the burgers of Louis Burger, a new cloud kitchen run by Zorawar Kalra, an entrepreneur who truly knows his food. He runs a multi-restaurant outfit called Massive Restaurants. After launching Louis Burger in Mumbai, the Delhi chapter was opened earlier this month.
Patty, the real McCoy
I had a sampling – and found them delicious. The buns were soft and milk-washed; the fries were thick, crisp and peri-peri flavoured, if you like them spicy (and plain, if you don’t). But the real McCoy was the patty – prepared with ingredients varying from lamb and double buff to grilled chicken and various kinds of mushrooms.
There is a lot to choose from: the Smash Lamb Cheese Burger is a juicy lamb patty with Emmental cheese; the Classic Chicken Burger is flavoured with honey mustard and the Grilled AF (air-fried) Chicken Burger has truffle mayo with cheddar. The prices range from ₹215 to ₹888, and the food is delivered through Swiggy and Zomato.
The vegetable burgers are worth trying out. The Farm House Burger has various kinds of veggies with mozzarella, pickled onion and a hot sauce. The Vegan Gratitude Burger consists of beets, refried beans, sweet potato, jalapeno, confit tomato and vegan mayo. The jalapeno gave a nice kick to the burger, while the beets gave it a sweet touch. The fried chicken wings (₹195) are superb. The chicken pieces are deliciously plump, and the coating is crunchy and hot, with a paprika rub.
The burger that troubled me somewhat was the Louis Grand Royale (₹888). As a burger it was delicious, for it had a flavourful buff patty (you can ask for lamb) with truffle, cheddar and shimeji. What didn’t work for me was the thin gold warq sheet on top of the bun. Who wants gold on their burger? Its vegetarian version is the Truffletake Burger – consisting of shiitake and shimeji mushrooms, truffle, English cheddar, parmesan, gold warq and truffle oil. Again, the mushrooms were delectable but the gold completely unnecessary. If you ignore the warq, the fare is delicious.
I was so inspired by Louis Burger that the next evening I organised an in-house burger meal for us. I put a slice of Amul cheese, some moist ham and a crisp lettuce leaf between two small buns, and made a happy meal out of a hastily prepared burger. The only thing missing, alas, was the pumpkin sauce.
