Burger Bar

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No, Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet, but I think it’s safe to say Hubert Keller invented the upscale burger restaurant.

Keller was in the process of opening Fleur de Lys, an offshoot of his landmark San Francisco restaurant, six years ago when then-management of Mandalay Bay asked him to take over a suddenly vacant spot in the soon-to-open Mandalay Place.

The restaurant originally had been planned as a burger joint of the paper-napkins-and-plastic-tray variety, but Keller has said he decided that if he was going to do it, he was going to do it right. Keller knew that in New York, culinary lion Daniel Boulud had garnered quite a bit of acclaim for his foie-gras-and-short-rib-stuffed DB Burger (which also is served at Boulud’s restaurant at Wynn Las Vegas). Inspiration met determination, et voila: Keller’s Burger Bar was born.

A parade of similarly oriented restaurants has followed, and Keller himself has opened another Burger Bar, in St. Louis, and plans a third in San Francisco’s Union Square. But while the original Burger Bar may no longer be the one and only, it’s still among the best; a recent visit found things at Gourmet Burger Ground Zero to be humming along quite nicely.

One of the smartest things Keller did when he designed Burger Bar was to offer several different types of beef, in addition to lamb, turkey, seafood and veggie burgers, with a variety of toppings from garden, farm, ocean and more and a variety of breads, all of it to be mixed and matched in endless do-it-yourself variety. Among the beef types is American-style Kobe, or Wagyu beef, from Snake River Farms in Idaho.

If you have a pre-recession budget and aren’t feeling particularly creative, you can have that Wagyu in the Rossini, a "chef’s burger" with foie gras, shaved truffles and Madeira sauce. That seemed a little rich for both our appetite and our expense account, but we stuck with the theme, ordering ours ($16.50) simply topped with blue cheese (95 cents) on a ciabatta bun.

And it was lovely, just lovely, with a buttery texture that was matched by the texture of the cheese and a rich flavor that was cut by the cheese’s pungent one. On the side we had zucchini fries ($3.30) to see if they were different from the bar-variety deep-fried zucchini, and these were both thicker, so that the zucchini flavor was more evident, and encased in a much-better-than-average ultra-light, crunchy coating.

We decided to follow the kitchen’s lead on the sliders ($12.50), which were appealing in their variety: buffalo with caramelized onions, Black Angus with bacon and Ridgefield Farms with American cheese, with plain buns and skinny fries on the side. While the buffalo naturally carried its characteristic flavor, the differences between the two types of beef were difficult to detect, especially served in this manner.

A chocolate burger (a donut with layers of chocolate ganache, passionfruit and mint) had seemed like a good idea on the way in, but not after that rich Wagyu.

Service throughout was fine, our waitress both efficient and persistent (which isn’t always a bad thing). A glass of Franziskaner Dunkel ($7.50) was as cold as it gets (which is always a good thing). And we got to watch the Gonzaga-St. Mary’s basketball game on a TV right there in our booth.

What more could we have wanted?

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@reviewjournal.com.