On The Flip Side
Chefs in the Lowcountry are getting personal with new renditions of the beloved burger.
The burger has proven itself as a hero menu item: approachable, crowd pleasing, and cost-effective. But to have a burger that’s both familiar and exciting—and affordable but also high-quality—isn’t always an easy task. In Charleston and Savannah, a few chefs have innovated dynamic burgers that are reliable and accessible, yet rich with personality.
photos: will blunt
At Strange Bird, Chefs Daniel Aranza and Felipe Vera churn out Mexican-American dishes from a repurposed streamliner in Savannah’s Victorian District. The duo draws on flavor memories from their childhoods spent in Southern California and Mexico, respectively, and centers dishes around succulent proteins smoked in-house. To create a signature burger, Aranza and Vera looked to a Mexican dish that has taken the States by storm in recent years: the birria taco. To transform the rich dipping taco into a smoky sandwich, they start with freshly ground beef, mixed with rendered beef fat “to really get that nice deep flavor,” and seasoned with an oregano-forward “green chorizo spice.” After searing the patty on the flat top, the burger gets layered with queso Oaxaca, chile toreados, and confit garlic aïoli, and served on house-made milk bread that’s “more like Texas toast.” The birria burger can be ordered as a single or double, and either way it’s served, it’s juicy, smoky, cheesy, and studded with bright green chiles. But, says Aranza, “the star is the consommé.” After creating a rich beef stock infused with chiles and cumin, the chefs fortify it with demi-glace, lime juice, vinegar, and cilantro and cook it down to concentrate the flavors. “Dipping the burger is freaking awesome,” says Aranza. “It’s like a French dip burger, but with our flair.”
In Charleston, Chef Mario Torres uses his pop-up, Caribo Flip, to showcase his take on traditional Puerto Rican dishes. Despite the menu being stacked with an array of pinchos, mofongo, and freshly fried empanadas, “everybody is always asking for burgers,” says Torres. So, he created a burger that would fit in on his menu. He starts with a whole oxtail, braised for four to five hours “like my mom and grandma used to make.” Once he can pull the meat off of the bones with a fork, he sets it aside, then reduces the braising liquid “until it’s thick like gravy,” and then mixes it back into the shredded meat. After adding sofrito, tomato, and herbs, Torres forms the mixture into patties and cooks them to-order. “You get a nice sear on both sides, and the gravy caramelizes on the grill,” he says. Then, he thought, “how can we keep [the burger] Caribbean all the way?” The answer came by way of fried plantains and a thick slice of fried queso de freír, layered on top of the oxtail patty. For a final touch, Torres adds a swath of mayo-ketchup to a kaiser roll, along with a garlic-cilantro vinaigrette, and serves the oxtail burger with a pile of pickled onions on the side—succulent, sweet, salty, and staunchly Puerto Rican-American.
