The events team here at the Scene has put together another Burger Week July 11-17, and it looks like it’s gonna be a whopper. Strike that, it looks a lot better than a Whopper, with almost 50 restaurants competing for your vote to see who reigns supreme as Nashville’s burgermeister.
You know the drill: A selection of local bars and restaurants will present a burger special for just $7, and all you have to do to participate is order it, eat it and vote for your favorite. In addition to bragging rights, the winning restaurant will receive a golden ticket to compete in the 2023 World Food Championships.
As always, please be patient as restaurants may run out of food. Be sure to order something else and tip like a baller, because these competitors are offering you a great deal to be part of Burger Week.
To help you plan your eat and eat your plan, we’ve assembled a list of participants and their burger offerings. While it’s impossible to faithfully recommend one restaurant over another without actually eating their offerings yet, here are a dozen intriguing options that immediately struck my eye:
Germantown Pub
It’s always a risk to try to apply the label “Nashville Hot” to something that’s not chicken, but I have faith that Germantown Pub can pull it off with their spicy burger topped with jalapeño sauce, pico de gallo and pepper jack cheese garnished with a fried jalapeño pepper. Ask for extra water!
Moxy Rooftop
This downtown hotel is literally elevating its offering with a Rooftop Burger made with top-shelf ingredients like two 4-ounce short rib patties with red onion jam, pecan smoked slab bacon, melted Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog cheese, buttermilk fried shallots in-between butter toasted brioche bun. You had me at Humboldt Fog, but you slayed me with the addition of duck fat fries.
Wilco Fusion Grill
There are obviously some Red Hot Chili Peppers fans in the kitchen at Wilco, because their Dani California Burger looks like a real headbanger. Promising a melange of the chef and owner’s Venezuelan and Chilean backgrounds, this burger is topped with homemade mango habanero jam, spring mix, tomatoes, white cheddar, charred raisins, grilled red onions and avocado mayo, topped with Southern candied bacon. They won’t have to “Give It Away.”
Peachtree Neighborhood Grill
I like how this South Nashville favorite is seizin’ the season and honoring its own name by topping its burger with jalapeño-peach chutney, along with maple wood bacon, house-made pimento cheese, lettuce and tomato before serving it on a Kaiser bun.
Another Broken Egg Cafe
With their Ultimate Breakfast Benedict Burger, ABE Cafe is expanding your window of mealtime options to try a Burger Week offering by 33 percent. It’s a burger patty topped with smoked ham and bacon, an over-medium egg, jalapeño-infused hollandaise sauce, green onions and paprika. Umm … yes, please!
Graze
Speaking of options, you can always depend on Graze to provide some delicious vegetarian alternatives to traditional dishes. Their utter misnomer of a BBQ Bacon Burger features a vegetarian patty made in-house, melted cheese, seitan bacon and bourbon BBQ sauce. It’s so crazy, it might just work!
Brown’s Diner
Brown’s serves the quintessential diner burger in town, and I’m a longtime fan (especially since I live a block away). I do have to wonder what will be different about this particular burger since $7 is a pretty substantial increase over their regular price. Maybe it’s helping to pay for that badass new deck they’ve been building out front. I’m OK with that.
The Horn
Extra credit creativity points for The Horn, the Murfreesboro Pk. Somali coffeehouse, for their Cheeseburger Sambusa entry! Spiced beef and chipotle mayo tucked inside of a flaky pastry is something I’d make that drive for.
City Winery
Sometimes it’s fine to “chef up” a humble burger, and with the City Winery Burger, the kitchen is really showing off. Made from their own house-blend beef, the patty is topped with garlic herb aioli red wine-braised onion, brie, lemon-dressed arugula, and gherkin pickles on a brioche bun. They say it pairs well with their Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, and I’m gonna trust them on that one.
Tavern's Urban Cowboy Burger
Tavern
This Midtown stalwart is the early leader in the clubhouse for best picture, because their Urban Cowboy Burger is dead sexy! Take a wagyu patty and top it with Coca-Cola BBQ brisket, bibb lettuce, dill pickles, crispy fried onion strings, Western aioli and just hand them the damned Oscar.
JWB Grill
In case you didn’t know it, JWB stands for James William Buffett, so there’s a little added pressure for the Margaritaville Hotel’s cheeseburger to be paradisiacal. They have accepted the challenge with a JWB Smash Burger made with black angus beef and the expected special sauce, lettuce, cheese on a potato bun. Kudos to the national chain for sourcing local bacon from Gifford’s, a choice also wisely made by Nashville Jam Co. and The Pharmacy Burger Parlor & Beer Garden.
Little Blue Menu
This last entry intrigues me for a couple of reasons. First of all, Little Blue Menu isn’t even really a restaurant, per se. (It certainly is not one like Per Se!) It’s actually a new experimental delivery concept from Chick-Fil-A run out of their carryout-only facility on Church St. Nashville is the first test market with an expansion to Maryland coming soon. Little Blue Menu’s Single Bacon Cheeseburger is made using a never-frozen ground beef patty, thick-cut bacon, aged cheddar cheese, romaine lettuce, tomato, kosher dill pickles and Arctic Fox Sauce. Which brings me to the second intriguing question: What part of an Arctic fox did they make the sauce from?
