I Ate The World's Best Burger

This is the number one burger in the world. And let's compare it to this futuristic burger made by a robot, this Wagyu burger, with the best meat in Japan, and everything else. And we start here, where the first burger was invented. This is the Louis Lunch, the first restaurant of burgers in the world. Founded in 1895, they serve their burgers the same way as always, and ketchup and mustard are prohibited. Are you ready to try the first burger in the country? I'll tell you a story. One day, in 1900, a gentleman entered this same restaurant and told the owner that he was in a hurry and wanted something fast. So the chef put the ground beef between two slices of toast, since it was the fastest thing he could do, and the rest is history. Thank you. You're welcome. What you're seeing here is an exact copy of the first burger ever made. It looks more like a sandwich than a modern burger, but it also looks much more succulent. It's classic. It's the purest form of a burger that I think I've ever tried. But as I said, we have a lot of burgers to try. Okay? Our next stop is at Gordon Ramsay Burger, where they serve a beautiful breakfast burger, perfect to start our day. I always want to season the hamburger before I start grilling. This is our SPG seasoning, salt, pepper and granulated garlic. We want to cover everything. Of course you want to get both sides. I want to take one of these home. Super consistent, very fast. The crazy thing is that I don't make enough burgers, but I still want one. What I'm going to do here is turn and move to another hot spot on the grill. That way you get a consistent searing. People don't realize that the grill marks have so much flavor. They're not just appearances. Yeah, it just adds that delicious hamburger fat. It cuts everything. Look how much smoke is coming out. This is one of the biggest coifas I've ever seen. Should I turn it again? Turn it. What I have here is cooked on both sides. This is the egg. This goes with a little salt. I'm going to stir it a little, but as you can see, it gets a little brown on the edges. It comes from a hot pan, so as it rests, an egg or any protein, they will continue to cook for a while. What you want to do is really base the hamburger with this butter. We have a little reusen sauce, black fermented bean sauce, honey and garlic. This will help to caramelize a little. It will give that flavor that makes this hamburger really special. I make it like beef, which is what they are. Me too. It's the same meat, just in a different way. I love that you can clearly see a sharp crust on this hamburger. Now fill it with cheddar, with a lot of lincoln. So I'm going to put it here. It will give a nice crunch to the bacon. It will melt the cheese. Oh, you can see how it starts to get crispy. Beautiful on a brioche bun. So you have our egg. As you can see, it overflowed here. And it's just time for breakfast. Gordon always surprises me with his food. He took something almost very simple and turned it into a masterpiece that I want to dive into. It's not just the hamburger I would eat for breakfast. I would eat this all day. The next one is Hamburger America, a restaurant that serves hamburgers from all over the country. But they are better known for their onion hamburger. This place was founded by George, who dedicated his whole life to studying hamburgers from all over the world. And now he is known as the biggest specialist in hamburgers in America. What do you like in a hamburger? What do you think makes a perfect hamburger? For me, a perfect hamburger is simple. People like to put strange things on top, like truffle oil and cheese pasta. And that just doesn't work. The original hamburger only had meat and bread, not even cheese. Cheese is a wonderful addition to a cheeseburger. So the onion hamburger was invented in El Reno, Oklahoma, in 1922. Meat, salt, sliced onion, super thin. Wow. Amazing. This is what the French call shabu. Shabu? Shabu, which means angel hair. That's twice the amount of onion I expected you to put. When they cook, they reduce it to less than half of its volume. Before there were hamburger molders and hamburger makers, there was a portioned meat ball that was flattened. They realized early on that the thinner the meat, the faster it cooks. Simple as that. I like how you're focused. You have to get close, make sure everything is perfect. You have to master that. You have to be part of the process. You're not just throwing frozen hamburgers on a plate. You're creating, you know? A hamburger art. A stainless steel spatula. That's the art. That makes the bread nice and warm and vaporized. Exactly. It's a thought that says the bread should be toasted. We have a hamburger where the bread is toasted, but this one, I believe, should be vaporized to keep it traditional. For a fried onion hamburger, I believe it should be vaporized. In addition, the closer they are, the better it cooks. If it has a full plate, it cooks much better than just a hamburger. The key to this hamburger is just the time. This one takes about 8 minutes to cook, and the smash takes a maximum of 2 minutes. The onions are slightly caramelized. It takes a little time. Something strange is happening here. The onions are underneath. The meat's fat is going down to the onions and cooking. This also helps slow down the process and caramelize the onions. See how they shrink? The meat's melted fat is what turns these onions into a beautiful caramel, almost like onion candy. Look at the difference. And the difference in flavor, too. As soon as it comes out, we pinch it and pull a little underneath. We move it like this. It's tangled. Damn, that's crazy, man. Look at this. Oklahoma's way is to put a little mustard. That's amazing. Enjoy! Well, this hamburger is almost melting in my hand. I must say that this hamburger is so soft. You know, I don't even like mustard that much, and it's amazing. The flavor profile works perfectly. The cheese is very well melted. It's perfectly melted right in the middle. And people don't believe it. They sit on the counter, bite it, and say, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Next, we're going to New York's most famous barbecue to try the aged dry meat hamburger. They turn all the meat devices into tasty hamburgers that we're about to try. Welcome to Peter Luger's safe. This is our dry maturation room. So this is like a bank safe, but for a barbecue. Exactly. How much meat is in here? Literally tons. I can't give you an estimate. Real tons? Really? Thousands and thousands of pounds. And there are different cuts and maturation times. And once the maturation is over, then it's ready to be braised. So that's how it is before you go into the safe. And that's what it looks like after Mobile is going to use the saw to cut it into steaks. And then Fabio here is going to separate the steaks so that they're ready to be cooked in our grillers. After setting up all your steaks, each one with more than an inch and a half thick, they end up with all these amazing steaks here. These are the steaks we just saw. Normally we braise 60 pounds of meat on a weekday or 90 on the weekends. So this is our ground meat. It's a mixture of rye and dry-matured steaks. We measure the hamburger meat in a cup of coffee. It's very old-fashioned. And then we press it and shape it into hamburgers. These are thrown in the grill, seasoned, and then we cut the bread and add a slice of onion that was dipped overnight in water. Then we turn it into a hamburger, let it cook a little longer, then we add the cheese and it's ready. I just want you to see how juicy this hamburger is. Look at this dripping on the plate. My God! I would say, without a doubt, that it's the most satisfying hamburger I've ever eaten. Sometimes a hamburger can be just a snack, but this one is a complete meal and I can really taste the aged meat. I'm going to take this one on a trip. It's time for a hamburger on pretzel bread. This restaurant is called Emily. Instead of the typical cheeseburger, they are better known for their pretzel hamburger. It all starts with a generous amount of seasoning, and then the hamburgers go to a plate where they stay to get a good seasoning on each side. Then they are put aside to rest, similar to a steak, and a little cheddar cheese is added to melt on top. The hamburgers also come loaded with a generous amount of onions, which they cook for six hours every morning. While they are in the oven to let the cheese melt completely, they spread butter and toast the pretzel breads. Then they cover with the Korean gochujang sauce. Once the cheese melts, it's time to assemble and the hamburger is ready. This hamburger is beautiful. This shows that hamburgers can and should come in all shapes and sizes. And unlike your typical smashburger, this hamburger here has a lot, a lot of juice. This will probably be the messiest hamburger I'll eat in this whole video, but I don't think so. Wow, because it's a pretzel bread, it's chewable, it's a little sweeter than a hamburger bun, and the orange sauce they put here is phenomenal. Look at my hands. I would eat everything, but I have to save space. I've never eaten one of these in my life, but we had to put it on the list. The cheese pasta burger. You heard right. Wayne's Wharf is known for its extremely high and messy cheese pasta burger. Hi, I'm Hugo. I'm here to make a cheese pasta burger. So you're doing two things now, Hugo. You're making cheese pasta and you're making a burger. Then you put it all together. So first you start by pressing the burgers. They're huge, by the way. First, just salt. Just salt. Oh, okay. So now the burger goes to the broiler. This is the cheese pasta, right? Yes, cheese pasta. Let's start making the cheese sauce, a little bit of cream. This is cooked pasta, right? Yes. Yes, put it in hot water, cheese pasta sauce. Hugo, do you have anything to say to everyone watching? Come and try this cheese pasta burger. You can come, right? Yes, if you go crazy, you have to like 100 orders of burgers here. Don't worry. Would you like a medium or medium point? What do you suggest? I suggest medium. You're the boss. Okay, let's go. Now the pasta. Put it straight in the cheese sauce with four cheeses. Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, Velveeta cheese. Ah, it's well melted. Yes, yes, exactly, creamy. Put a little butter and put it on the hot plate. Look at this cheese. It's the biggest pile of cheese I've ever seen in my life. This is the point. I'm going to put two more slices of cheese. There's cheese everywhere. I could even put a piece of cheese on my head. Special sauce? Yes. Put it all in. Cheese pasta. The burger goes on top. Here comes the burger with cheese on top. So it's finished with this cheese pasta, which is simply crazy. Cheese pasta everywhere. Oh, look at that. The knife goes in with everything. I think we forgot to add the cheese. This thing is too big to fit in my mouth, so Hugo is going to cut it in half and show the cross-section of this burger. Come back, Hugo. Let's go. I'm going to take a bite. The seasoning is amazing. I thought it would be a lot of cheese with all this cheese pasta, but it's actually really good. Thank you, Hugo. Can I take this with me? We're about to try a vegan burger made by a robot. This is Coronel, a restaurant operated by robots founded by Steve Ells, the same one that founded Chipotle. You're the first person I know who has a robot as a teammate. You bet. I never miss work. That's amazing. So this is the little cube where all the food is made. Yes. So how are we going to make a burger? We're going to make an order on the app. This is the menu. I'd like to order some burgers. So, Coronel burger, I'm going to put it in the bag and make the order. These are the ovens in the oven. It's like a control panel in a restaurant. Right, on the line. The chef has to keep all this in mind. It's all planned out in his own head. Everything was orchestrated to be completed at the same time. So the lower buns go here, the upper ones go there, it goes up, and there are two transporters there. That's so cool. Look at these red dots on the buns. It's for all the lasers, so the robot knows when to send certain things and where it is all the time. You set it up so well that you can just... Everything we can reduce to about 15 seconds. So with the help of the robots, everything takes 15 seconds once it's here. Yes. I hear the burger filling up too. Yeah. Wow, that's so fast. That's not even real speed. No, if we increased the speed, it could, for example, get out of the tray. So these buns are ready. So the robot is ready to get this and... There it goes. It's coming here. That's so cool. I'm going to get the burger. Very well toasted brioche buns, green sauce, canned onions on top. So this goes all the way to the end of this rack here. And someone packs the... So it's scanned, put in the cubicle, and then you'll be notified. I asked to move the robot, and they said no, because apparently this could happen. So this just turned green. It means our food is ready, and we just got it. Our burger. This is my first burger made by a robot. Inside, it even looks like a dot, even though there's no meat here. Good job, robot. This is a good burger. Truffle burger. Oh, this is a heavy door. The next one is famous for its luxurious black truffle burger. In this simple kitchen, we make about a thousand burgers a week. So let's make a black truffle burger, smoked for you. These are two servings of four ounces. It's a personalized mix of açaí, contrafilé and alcatra. We mash it straight on the plate, and season one side with our umami seasoning mix. It's a patented mix that we make here. We leave the bottom side of the burgers to create a nice crust. That's where the real flavor comes from. So let's spread the butter on the buns, turn them over and scrape them. They're on the bottom, right? Now let's put some black truffle on the burger. We want the flavors to be layered. Truffle? We're not kidding. And on top of that, let's put some smoked mozzarella. We got this cheese locally in Brooklyn. Smoked cheese goes really well with truffle. Now let's pile it up and cover it up. Some water and some steam. We're cooking our homemade kimchi. Look at the flames. That's what you see in the sauce. The burger is ready. Let's let it rest. This is our special kimchi and black truffle sauce. Let's add some fresh chopped onion. I think this is important. The circumference of the bun is from edge to edge. This is our white truffle oil that we're pouring on top. The top bun goes on top. This is our burger. The orange color contrasts with the white cheese, so the caramelized but dark meat is simply incredible. Mmm. This bite is a truffle explosion. Just listen to those crunchy edges. I asked for extra sauce, so it's a little messy. But if you like truffle, come. Some of you may argue that this next stop technically isn't a burger, but just wait until you see. This is Chef Danny. Sushi Chef Danny. Danny is making bread for a sushi burger. This is basically a deconstructed spicy tuna roll. And this is just sushi rice that you'd use to make sushi? This is a furikake, a traditional Japanese rice seasoning. We have nori, a beautiful tuna number one, a little oil, and sesame seeds. Just a touch of spicy mayonnaise. Oh, and you press it with your hands? Yeah, he's a master. Let's add a little radish and daikon, a little cucumber. It doesn't look like a cucumber. It's fresh and crunchy. That's it. A little ginger, canned, and a little wakame seaweed. A little avocado. Oh, that's talent. It's beautiful. We have used mayonnaise and spicy mayonnaise, a kind of eel sauce, and then the top bun. Thank you, Chef Danny. How can you tell me this isn't a burger? There are two buns with sesame seeds on top and there's a patty in the shape of a raw fish. Yes, listen. A sushi burger is a burger. Oh, I'm excited for this smash burger. Have you heard of it? My name is Mike Puma, founder of Gotham Burger Social Club. I open this not as a place to serve burgers, but as a place to feed the community. The city was closed during the pandemic and it was a place for people to come out and have a little normality in their lives. Look at this setup down here. This is so well prepared. You're dealing with a high volume. You need everything very accessible, ready to use. You're toasting the top of the buns. This isn't the first move most people make. It has to be different. So what do you love so much about burgers? We always say that nothing tastes better than memories. For me, it's not about the best burger. It's the burger that reminds you of your childhood. So we try to make a very nostalgic burger here. I like to have a little bit of chewing and keep a little bit of that meatiness in the middle of the burger. And we hit it with our mop. Which is okay, I respect that. And then just salt. So here we leave the plate to do the work. You want a burnt part of the onions, so you're going to have some sweet and soft onions in the burger. The American cheese melts. And this is the best. I can say here that you're going to have the perfect balance of the crispy edges. And then the center is a little higher and you have this larger amount of meat. And we have our special pickle. It's just the right amount of bite. If you don't want to dominate anything, make a little bit of jalapeños in canned that won't be too aggressive here in the heat. So if I'm a baby with spices, I'm not going to get punched in the face. I promise. And here are these nostalgic notes. We just give ourselves a little kiss of ketchup just to know that it's there. The same thing with mustard. And now we're going to finish this. I love the appearance of the top being toasted like this. This is a masterpiece. Come with daddy, baby. I've never had a crunch like this. The texture is good for the bone. Oh my God, I got the jalapeño. It's not too spicy. It's a phenomenal burger. Because you have the fluffy and soft bread underneath and you have the hard bread and crunchy on top. This is something I've never had in a burger before. I was going to film a JogU burger in the United States, but something didn't seem right. So I came to Tokyo, Japan. This is the Geeseburger. Actually, I found them on Instagram and their burgers looked insane. They're run out, but luckily I know a guy here. We try to ensure that nothing competes with the taste of meat. There are so many different farmers in Japan. There are 40,000 farmers. And through the burger, we want to introduce some of these farmers. Let's see. Here's the Kobe beef seal. It means that the cow was certified as Kobe beef. This is the number of ten digits that you can track and see exactly where the cow was born and raised. In the United States, it's not like that. You just get a little bit of mysterious ground meat. This is the front part of the cow. Let's start with the hot toshimiti. It's the softest part of the tibia. Let's also put a little of this alcatra because the alcatra has a lot of marbling. We usually don't put any external fat. The alcatra does all the work for you. Now that we have the mixture ready, let's start weighing them because the alcatra has a very low melting point. Yeah. Normally, we put textile gloves like this one. That's crazy. And then we put the latex gloves. I bet there's no other burger place that has to do this because those who work with alcatra don't have this problem. Yeah, you can put this glove. I just take it and do a little bit of this pressing and I do like this. And then I do it like this. Oh, I can't do it. Nobody saw. What am I doing? This is taking the air out of the meat, so when you're cooking, it stays like a burger. As you can see, the fat is already coming out, making a layer on the gloves and melts very quickly. This is a very cool machine that can quickly make a consistent burger for us. These are 100g burgers. Only on the last weekend, we made about 100 burgers in one day. So first, we like to toast the bread with wagyu breadcrumbs. And since it's very hot, it happens very quickly. Once these breads are ready, I put them aside to get a little crust on them. And now it's time to cook the wagyu burger. We quickly put the salt before throwing the burgers on the plate. This creates a nice crust of salt and before turning them, we also put salt, so the crust is on both sides and on this surface. This temperature allows us to get a good crust. We have the breads from a place called Deris Bakery. Then we add the burger and after the burger, we put our wagyu mayonnaise sauce with wagyu bread, as well as a very special Japanese egg called dragon egg. And to finish, we add a little Grana Padano cheese and we can't forget the bread on top. I came to Japan for this. This is a very good burger. Wagyu is the star, but there are also other ingredients that stand out so much. At first I thought I was crazy to fly to Japan for a wagyu burger, but now I don't regret it.