Andrew (24) has been working fulltime in restaurant kitchens for the past five years and has decided that he wants to really make this his profession, so he’s headed to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY to get a degree in Culinary Science. He and I decided to take two weeks to drive across the country from Seattle to get there. On the way we’ll visit national parks, interesting little museums, and two cities I grew up in. But, the really interesting focus of our trip will be finding historically and regionally important hamburgers. Andrew researched the trip using the book Hamburger America plus some online work.

To set up for the trip, we decided to set a baseline using the best burger in Seattle, arguably Loretta’s Northwesterner. This is a tavern near Boeing Field, south of Seattle. We had both the double Tavern Burger (their specialty) and their Deluxe burger as well as fries.

The double Tavern Burger was really fantastic, the stuff of recurring dreams since we visited. It’s a straightforward smash burger with crispy, well-browned patties. The bun-to-meat ratio is perfect and there were minimal toppings – just American cheese, pickles, chopped onions, and special sauce. It was just a super well executed burger (similar the way that In-And-Out is a just a good, well executed burger.)

Surprisingly, the Deluxe burger was nothing special, despite having lettuce, tomato, and red onion. The patty was a thicker burger (their menu calls it “restaurant-style”) vs. a smash burger; it was fine but not as flavorful. I suspect the meat was different (maybe frozen?)

The fries were very good too – fresh cut potatoes, well browned but not crunchy.

Overall, we learned that sharing burgers to try a few different ones is a good idea since the tastiness of the burgers can vary across the menu. We decided we would ask each place we go which burgers they’re famous for and try those. Loretta’s set a very high bar for our trip. I’ll definitely go back there.