The Burger Is a Portrait of America

One hundred years ago, a teenager named Lionel Sternberger dropped a blanket of American cheese over a hamburger at his father’s sandwich shop in Pasadena, California, creating the first cheeseburger. The story may be as flimsy as a Kraft single, but it attests to the decades of tinkering and reinvention that have made the burger a lasting, ever-evolving American genre, like jazz or the Hollywood movie.

Today, burgers can come packed with the cultural ingredients that make the country what it is: regional tradition and immigrant inspiration, deep history and blue-sky creativity, plantains and gochujang and even more of that cheese. Here are 11 variations that reflect the moment — and the limitless things a great burger can be.

The Burger Is … Steadfast

Cheeseburger at Sun Cattle Co.

The signature dish at Sun Cattle is not exactly innovative. It’s a meticulous recreation of the fried-onion burger made famous in the diners of El Reno, about 30 miles west. Equal parts of ground beef and sliced onion are piled onto a griddle and cooked hard, creating a trinity of different onion flavors: slightly burnt, a little caramelized and almost raw — all enveloped by the funk of beef fat. American cheese is melted on top, with a stack of pickles to finish. It’s the kind of genius technique that wasn’t worth messing with, said the chef, Brad Ackerman. He uses beef from a nearby ranch run by one of Sun Cattle’s owners, Matt Parsons. Ackerman has no plans to change the menu seasonally or come up with non-burger innovations. “The heart of the American soul is burgers,” he said.

(800 W. Sheridan Ave. in Oklahoma City; $7; suncattle.com)

The Burger Is … a Taco

Campechana at Cuantas Hamburguesas

Tacos and hamburgers are more alike than they are different. At least, that’s what Beto Robledo, the owner of this food truck and its sibling, Cuantos Tacos, has always thought. Both foods, he points out, are portable, casual dishes that speak to life’s simple pleasures. So why not combine them? He opened the hamburger truck in 2023, four years after the taqueria, and its signature offering is the Campechana. The burger has longaniza, diced onions, cilantro, chimichurri mayo and a beef patty splashed with the same Maggi sauce he uses to season his carne asada. A mozzarella-crusted corn tortilla known as a costra takes the place of a cheese slice. It’s as if someone inserted a quesadilla into a burger, and it’s marvelous.

(1108 E. 12th St., Austin, Texas; $8.75; cuantashamburguesas.com)

The Burger Is … an Ambassador

Lao Burger at Ox Burger

When Khampaeng Panyathong first devised his Lao burger, it was as a bonus dish using ingredients prepped for his restaurant’s salad station. He grabbed jeow bong — an aromatic, labor-intensive dip typically served with sticky rice — and thinned it into an aioli. Instead of sliced tomato, he smeared tomato jeow between two slices of provolone. He layered patties with the kitchen’s cured pork belly and swapped in taro stems for lettuce, stacking it all in a glossy pub bun.

It was a burger absolutely crammed full of Lao ingredients, and for many diners visiting his restaurant Taurus Ox, it was also their first experience of Lao flavors. “They saw all these words, these unfamiliar words,” said Panyathong, “but the dish was so familiar.” It was also delicious, which kept customers coming back to try the chunky Lao sausage and the papaya salad made with unfiltered fish sauce. In 2023, Panyathong opened Ox Burger, a restaurant devoted to the Lao burger, which has doubled as an irresistible culinary ambassador.

(1523 E. Madison St., Suite 101, Seattle; $15; oxburgerseattle.com)

The Burger Is … Vegetarian (and Not Boring)

Made in Lagos Burger at Akara House

Working as an Instacart shopper at the height of the pandemic, Funso Akinya noticed that people kept buying plant-based burgers from companies like Impossible Foods. So he bought one to try. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is very terrible,’” he recalled. Surely, he thought, he could make a better vegetarian burger. He found his solution in akara, a Nigerian fritter made of peeled, mashed beans seasoned with plenty of fresh herbs, garlic and onion, and deep-fried until the outside is lightly crunchy and the interior is soft and lush.

Akinya is well-acquainted with Americans’ love of burgers — his first job when he immigrated 24 years ago was as a McDonald’s cashier. Last year, he opened a Nigerian veggie-burger joint, Akara House, where the most exciting item is the Made in Lagos burger, which pairs the akara patty with two fried plantains spiced with a peanutty suya seasoning. The sweet-spicy plantains and the herby beans make a remarkably harmonious duo. “I think this is the only way to have people like our food,” Akinya said. “By turning it into the burger.”

(642 Nostrand Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y.; $14.50; akarahouse.getsauce.com)

The Burger Is … Street Food

Ramly Burger at Kampar

The modern hamburger may have originated in the United States, but it’s just as big a sensation in Malaysia, said Ange Branca, the chef and owner of Kampar. In her homeland, street vendors duel to make the best version of the Ramly burger, a local invention with a saucy, omelet-wrapped patty and shredded cabbage. Its credited inventor is Ramly bin Mokni, who started selling halal burger patties to Malaysian vendors in the 1970s.

Branca first offered the burger during the pandemic; it sold so well that when Kampar reopened in March, she included it on the menu. The beef is enriched with Worcestershire sauce, cumin and coriander, the cheese is sharp cheddar, the ultra-plush bun is made from sweet potatoes, and the whole thing is quite sloppy, with sambal mayonnaise dripping off the sides. “There are some customers who question, ‘Why is there a burger on the menu?’ Because they do expect me to be a more classical Malaysian chef,” Branca said. She tells them: This is Malaysian food.

(611 S. Seventh St., Philadelphia; $19; kamparphilly.com)

The Burger Is … Living History

Classic Smash Burger at Hamburger America

The long, rich saga of the American hamburger can be found packed into this 15-stool diner in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. The owner, George Motz, is a devoted student of the dish, which he calls “one of the only truly American food inventions of the last 120 years.” And the fruits of his research are on display: the photos of classic diners lining the walls, the printed menu above the counter (mimicking the one at Convention Grill in Edina, Minnesota), and the “No newspapers or laptops at counter” sign, an homage to White Hut in Springfield, Massachusetts. The classic smash burger at Hamburger America, which opened in November, is the same, thrillingly simple one Motz has been making at pop-ups for years — a thin, crisp-edged patty, a melting slice of American cheese and a generously buttered and toasted Martin’s potato roll. To further his mission of spreading burger knowledge, each month Motz flies in an owner of a renowned diner — like Solly’s Grille in Glendale, Wisconsin, or Weston’s Kewpee Sandwich Shop in Lansing, Michigan — to give customers a delicious lesson in history.

(51 MacDougal St., Manhattan, N.Y.; $7.25; hamburgeramerica.com)

The Burger Is … Limited-Edition

Double Smash Burger at Burger Bodega

As a Houston teenager, Abbas Dhanani spent many hours standing in line to buy the latest special-edition sneaker. Now crowds wait patiently at Burger Bodega for his limited-edition burger collaborations. Dhanani, whose family owns about 500 Burger King and 400 Wendy’s franchises throughout the United States, partners with local chefs and TikTok influencers to create short-run specials like chapli burgers and beef rendang smash burgers. During Ramadan last year, he and an aunt who runs a catering business staged a pop-up for Suhoor selling cheeseburger samosas. Burger Bodega’s double smash burger, with its caramelized, almost pizzelle-like (and halal) beef skirt, is available year-round but still a hot seller. It tastes the way a fast-food burger should, but rarely does.

(4520 Washington Ave., Houston; $9.95; burgerbodega.com)

The Burger Is … a Mess (in a Good Way)

Lucy Goosey at Hot Dish Pantry

Midwesterners are a measured lot, especially when it comes to food. Chefs mess with classics like the beefy Tater Tot-covered casserole called hot dish at their peril. But Wisconsinites Nathan Heck and Laura Maigatter have bravely waded into their region’s culinary canon at their restaurant, Hot Dish Pantry, where standards like pierogi come dressed up like aloo chaat, and the classic pounded pork tenderloin sandwich has an eggplant cousin. Their cheese-stuffed Lucy Goosey — with Wisconsin cheddar sealed between two beef patties — was inspired by the Juicy Lucy, a drippy burger with a molten core of American cheese that was invented in a Minneapolis bar in the 1950s.

While the original sits on a soft bun, topped only with fried onions or a few pickles, the Lucy Goosey is dressed like a more traditional burger on a toasted brioche bun, with lettuce, raw onions, tomato and pickles. A gooey slice of American cheese on top underscores the cheesy concept, and yellow mustard and a squeeze of mayo finish things up. If you’re lucky, a bit of the cheddar will have leaked out and hit the grill, crisping up into a Midwestern frico. — KIM SEVERSON

(4125 S. Howell Ave., Milwaukee; $14; hotdishpantry.com)

The Burger Is … Proudly Local

Cholms Single at Cholms Burger

A buttered, toasted potato roll, a slice of melting American cheese and a 3-ounce patty, pressed against the grill so its edges brown: It doesn’t sound radical, but in a cattle-rich state that paradoxically imports most of its meat from as far away as Brazil, Cory Taber has developed and refined his simple hamburger in symbiosis with a local butcher shop, Daniel’s Gourmet Meats. Daniel’s processes beef from ranchers in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho and, in a custom blend for Taber, grinds in a portion of smoky bacon ends.

Taber says he aims to keep prices low in an increasingly expensive tourist town, where his trailer is a welcoming spot for fellow food service workers, local families and students. As he tells it, his love of burgers is just as homegrown: “I grew up with a single mom; she was a bartender. When she couldn’t find a babysitter, she’d bring me to work and I’d see cooks smashing balls of beef on the flattop all night long. The smash burger wasn’t trendy, it was just good.”

(319 N. Seventh Ave., Bozeman, Mont.; $7; instagram.com/cholmsburger)

The Burger Is … Expansive

Amelia’s Frita at Amelia’s 1931

Any Miami restaurant famous for Cuban comfort food will offer its version of the frita, a Cuban-style smash burger topped with fried potato strings that spill over the sides of a Cuban roll. Chef Eileen Andrade resisted putting a frita on her menu, but her mother, Nancy Andrade, who runs Islas Canarias, persuaded her to embrace its popularity. Eileen Andrade did it her own way, referencing both her Korean and Peruvian culinary training. Her frita starts with a beef and chorizo patty, marinated in sesame oil, sweet chile sauce and gochujang. It’s topped with Gruyère, crispy fried potato strings and diced sweet plantains, slicked with a Peruvian huacatay mayo and served on a housemade Cuban bun. It’s a substantial and idiosyncratic take on the frita, which dates back to the 1920s, when vendors sold them from roadside pushcarts in Havana. — CARLOS FRÍAS

(13601 S.W. 26th St., Miami; $18; amelias1931.com)

The Burger Is … the Next Generation

Laab Smash Burger at Ban Ban Burger

Sisters Katy Noochlaor and Amanda Maneesilasan grew up in their family’s restaurant, Chao Krung, a Los Angeles fixture in the 1970s, before Thai food businesses, markets and bakeries flourished in the city. In an effort to distinguish their work from their parents’, they opened Ban Ban Burger in April. The shop re-imagines dishes like krapow and laab as nostalgic, paper-wrapped smash burgers that look and taste as if they’ve always existed. For the krapow smash burger, a thick smear of garlic, holy basil and hot bird’s-eye chiles is slathered on the patty. As you eat it, the fried egg breaks, covering the thin patty in runny yolk. The laab burger is seasoned with an aromatic paste of fresh lemon grass, makrut lime, mint, chiles and toasted rice powder. It’s all held together, appropriately, by a sticky slice of American cheese.

(1644 Sawtelle Blvd., No. 3149, Los Angeles; $13; instagram.com/banbanburger)

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .