A month is really not enough time to tell if a restaurant is going to survive, or if its cuisine is worthy of exaltation. That being said, Bill St. Bar and Grill in Little Rock just might have the best burger in the city. That's a heck of a thing to say, I know. But the burger seems to be something extraordinary.
Upon the recommendations of a couple of people who had urgently emailed and Tweeted me about finding joy on a bun at Bill St., I visited the restaurant for lunch on a perfectly seasonable spring day. Bill St. opened next door to the Clinton Library Store on President Clinton Avenue just down from the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock. I suppose there's no mistaking how the place got its name.
The restaurant is below street level, with a descending wooden staircase down onto the patio. There is an elevator upstairs in the banquet room area. The rejuvenated building has been scraped down to its structural timbers, with quietly blue walls and nicely spaced tables throughout. There's a bar at the patio end and a few TV monitors, along with a few painted rendition of famous rock photographs of Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon. Downtempo music fills the space.
The menu seems more upscale than it has to be for a burger bar. Appetizers include Portobello “Fries” with Ranch dressing and Sausage Balls with Dijon-mayonnaise. There's also an Arkansas classic, Pimento Cheese with Celery. I got a kick out of the list of wing flavors, especially Russian Roulette in which one of the wings is injected with habanero juice. There are four salads and five sandwiches on the menu, and even Fish and Chips. But I was on a burger quest.
Which burger do you go with? Bill St. offers 11 kinds, including a Veggie Burger and a Salmon Burger (which the menu warns may include bones). The other nine include the Argentina (with fried egg and salsa), the Taco (with taco seasoning and guacamole), the Napalm (with fried jalapeno peppers, Habanero purée, Pepper Jack cheese, and grilled pineapple), the Aloha (with teriyaki grilled pineapple, ham, and Swiss cheese), the Steakhouse (mushroom, Swiss, caramelized onion, and bacon), the Black and Blue (with bleu cheese, an onion ring, steak sauce, and bacon) and the Peanut Butter and Bacon. All of these seemed interesting, but to get to the real truth of whether this could be the best burger in town I had to go with the Bill Burger or the Double Bill.
I ended up choosing the simple half-pound Bill Burger because frankly, I can't eat a pound of burger meat in one sitting; it'd have been a waste. The Bill Burger comes with cheddar cheese and bacon, and like all of the other burgers there it comes cooked to order, with medium as a default. I asked for medium rare, and I got it. It took about 10 minutes for my order to come out.
The burger comes with a mess of hot fries and a pile of veggies on the side (along with optional condiments). My veggie pile included a big newspaper-like, eight inch-long flat of Romaine, a single slice of tomato, a couple of thin slices of red onion, and a couple of chunky bread and butter pickles. The burger is served up on a very lightly toasted sesame seed bun whose seeds go everywhere. It has a pick for a reason—it'll slide all over the place depending on whether and what vegetation you add to it. It's juicy. And dang, it's good.
The bacon isn't crispy-crunchy—it's cooked through okay. The cheddar cheese is more than adequate. Quite honestly, you could dispense with both and be perfectly happy. The good stuff is the spice in the patty, that fantastic combination of black pepper and some amazing special seasoning. It matches well to the fries and even better with the bread and butter pickles. I could've used about four times as many pickles, but that's me being crazy about bread and butter pickles there, Maynard
The fries are also very good. Of the lightly battered variety, they're nicely golden on the outside and almost creamy smooth on the inside. They're dipping fries, and if you ask for mayo or steak sauce to dip them in no one's going to raise an eyebrow. At least, not the wait staff.
And that's the last bit I need to comment on here. The wait staff is very eager right now, overcome with the need to please. They're young, they're excited, and they're willing to do just about anything to make sure you have a good experience. We'll have to see if that attitude continues.
So is Bill St. the king of Little Rock burgers? That's a hard title to pin down. I guess I'm not ready to concede it just yet; as I said, a month's just not enough time. But if the food's consistent, I could see the title changing hands in the near future.
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Who makes the best burger in Los Angeles? That question is the one people ask me and my burger confreres the most, and is perhaps the most difficult to answer. I came up with a list of favorites last fall, but now, just six months on, looking at it leaves me shaking my head. Is the order just right? Would I replace one for a new burger that I've tried since? It seems like a snapshot in time rather than an enduring document, but I imagine that's part of what makes the question interesting. The conversation about the best burger is an ongoing one.
Not too long ago The Foundry chef/owner Eric Greenspan decided that he wanted in on the dialogue and in a major way. Greenspan challenged Sang Yoon and his heralded Father's Office burger to a “Burger Bout” by placing a sign on the restaurant's door in the middle of the night. The stunt got the attention of the food “in crowd” here in Los Angeles and Greenspan's burger profile was raised. More recently, his burger bona fides were validated when LAist named The Foundry home to the best gourmet burger in town. All this burger brouhaha meant I was compelled to give The Foundry burger a closer look.
Greenspan opened his restaurant a few years back after making a reputation working under some of the most elite chefs in the country. His haute cuisine background is stamped all over his menu, but it runs counter to what you'd expect when meeting him. Despite his small stature there's not much about Greenspan that's diminutive. He cuts a Hitchcock-esque profile and has voluble brashness that on others would feel like self-conscious bad-boy-chef attitude. On Greenspan it just feels like the guy he's always been. Combine his big personality with years of dedicated training and you get a casual restaurant with fine dining refinement.
His burger, called The Patio Season Burger, has a simple description on the menu that belies the complexity of its construction. Listed as “Cheddar / Hawaiian Bread / Winter Condiments,” the truth of this sandwich is much bigger than that. The beef is an 80/20 blend that I'd guess has some stronger beef cuts (perhaps clod?), but when I inquire I am told quite simply, “Beef.” What I do know is that Greenspan adds what he calls “lard” for extra juice, but I'd guess it's duck fat (more on that in a bit).
The cheddar is a thin-sliced sharp, but it's in his condiments where things get a bit complex. Served on the burger is a tomato prepared confit along with a measured amount of arugula and supremely sour cornichon. On the side come three onion rings, a tamarind, onion tapenade, homemade mayonnaise, and pineapple and bacon relish. The bun is actually four small King's Hawaiian rolls left attached in the shape of a square.
The rich and full-flavored patty comes in a fine grind that would normally be a mark against a burger, but when matched by a superior crust it's a balancing texture. In fact, this patty's crust is as prodigious as any I've come across. It's deep and brown and so full of fat and flavor that I'd bet there's more going on than just proper seasoning and high heat. I suspect Greenspan makes good use of some fat—duck fat and butter perhap—to get his burgers this crusty and delicious.
The confit tomato and cornichon are overpowering on their own, but meld nicely with the other elements of the burger. The mayonnaise is so light and smooth that it makes me forget my soft spot for Hellman's. The onions and relish aren't unwelcome, but I have a hard time discerning just what they added. The onion rings, however, are so good—among the best I've ever had—that I have a hard time putting them on my burger as instructed. The addition of the King's Hawaiian bun seems out of place with the other high-end elements. It's a soft and spongy roll to be sure, but it feels decidedly off-the-rack against what is otherwise a beautifully bespoke burger creation.
The whole of the experience at The Foundry is noticeably put together. The service is attentive, but not overly formal. On one visit a mustachioed manager inquired about whether I was enjoying my food because so much was left uneaten (I was just full). On another, an impossibly beautiful server, from whom I'd expected the standard Los Angeles aloof treatment, was as solicitous and friendly as I could ask for. The music is live—while I usually avoid it with my meals, here it's mellow enough to seem like a convivial touch.
It's much the same with the burger: It's a collection of elements that I'd expect to be disappointed by, but it comes together nicely. Is it the best burger in Los Angeles? No, but it's damn good.
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