LogFAQs > #932538549

Open for over three years now, Au Cheval has become one of the hardest spots to get into in Chicago and a lot of the reason for that can be attributed to their cheeseburger. Six months in, even before Bon Appetit declared it the best in America, the Au Cheval cheeseburger had become the talk of the town. Once the Bon Appetit declaration was made its popularity went supernova and pretty soon suburbanites, tourists and celebrities were clamoring to get in and wait times ballooned in excess of three hours.
General manager Erika Golz: "Brendan (owner Sodikoff) came in the next day and said I don't want you to ever say that to anybody.'" She adds her own take on what telling people that could do. "If you say you have the best burger, they're thinking about the burger that they ate when their grandma had fireworks on their porch and they were five years old and it was actually probably a really bad cheeseburger. But all of the emotions and nostalgia surrounding it twenty years later, that burger's going to be the best burger for the rest of their life. If we say we make a pretty good burger, they'll make their own assessment."
People are obviously not put off by the long wait times since the restaurant sells around 400 single (2 patties) and double (3 patties) cheeseburgers each weekday and up to 500 a day on the weekend.
The burger starts with prime beef from W.W. Johnson Farms (by way of Sysco) that gets formed into four-ounce patties and slapped onto the 450 to 500 degree griddle until medium (they will do well done, but c'mon...). A layer of Kraft American cheese goes in between and on top of each patty and then before resting for a minute or two.
Then the buns from local Z Baking get toasted under the salamander. "We toast both sides of the bun (in the salamander). I think (this) is where a lot of places go wrong with their burger. So you (don't) just get a soppy mess at the end. If you toast it, then it gets crispy and (adds) extra texture," Gano says.

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Im ready to become a lifeless alt.