Simplicity is a smash at Hamilton's Delirious Burger

I had my first burger when I was a teenager.

Sometime in my early high school years, I remember a group of us gathering for a birthday party at one of the many "casual dining" restaurants in the city. A friend suggested I try the burger on the menu, and out came an intimidating tower of meat and vegetables.

I remember the meat patties were as thick as hockey pucks, sandwiched between stacks of sliced vegetables. It was almost humorous to look at.

I remember spending the next 15 minutes trying to determine how was I was actually going to eat the burger. I thought it was fine. I didn't know any better.

After that came the introduction to fast food chain burgers, as well as Johnny's Hamburgers in Scarborough. I had my first charbroiled burger there.

Johnny's Hamburgers is an institution in the GTA — open for more than 50 years. It was there that I realized there was beauty in simplicity. From there on, I discovered other old-fashioned burger institutions like Goldstar in North York and Apache Burgers in Etobicoke.

This is how you smash a burger

6 years ago

Duration 0:49

Ben Greco opened Delirious Burger in Hamilton because he found the city lacked old-fashioned burgers made with quality meat.

Until about a decade ago, burger options in the GTA were limited to these three categories: fast food, old-fashioned diner burgers made from pre-frozen patties, or the casual dining restaurant that served the chef's remix (where the meat often played a supporting role to a tower of toppings).

Then, Burger's Priest opened on Queen West in 2010, adding a new category of burger to Toronto's booming food scene. Inspired by American chains like Shake Shack and In-N-Out Burger, the focus was on the meat — freshly ground in house. The term "smash burger" was coined because of how the burgers are cooked.

You start with a ball of meat made from a custom blend. At least 20 per cent should be a cut like chuck, to give it the proper flavour and fat content. You then place the ball on a flat grill and smash it down with a spatula so the meat flowers and flattens to a thin disk. The high heat caramelizes the fat, producing crunchy edges and trapping in the juices.

Many Torontonians — including myself — were instantly smitten by this type of burger. Since then, countless versions of it have popped up in every corner of the GTA and beyond.

When it comes to burgers, I'm in the camp that thinner is always better than thicker. If you use quality ingredients, you won't need more than a handful of condiments to create the perfect burger experience. The smash-style burger is a fine example of taking a dish that is incontestably attached to nostalgia, and refining it with better ingredients.

That was Ben Greco's mission. He opened Delirious Burger in Hamilton in 2013 because he found the city lacked old-fashioned burgers made with quality meat.

"I am a big burger fan and I eat burgers whenever I travel to the U.S.," he said. "The Stony Island burger is what I modelled my business after. I wanted to bring this style of burgers to this great city."

Greco decided to leave a promising career in marketing to pursue his dream of cooking American-style burgers in Steeltown.

"I came home one day and told my wife that I wanted to open a burger joint. She laughed at me and said I must be delirious. That's how Delirious Burger was born."

I discovered the restaurant entirely by chance. I was eating my way through Hamilton's historic Westdale neighbourhood and was scouring my phone's map for options. I spotted a burger joint tucked into the side of a small plaza.

The restaurant is minimally-dressed with a handful of stools and a small menu.

"We want to highlight the meat and create great burgers that are fuss free," Greco said. "A simple burger." 

First timers, take Greco's advice: keep it simple.

Try the cheeseburger — either a single patty or a double, that's your call — but I suggest keeping the condiments to a minimum. If you're vegetarian, you'll be happy to hear that Greco has a meatless burger on the menu too, and there are no shortcuts when it comes to flavour.

Two large portobello mushroom caps are sautéed on the grill, cooled and then stuffed with aged cheddar and German Butterkäse, a cow's milk cheese. The caps are then coated in Panko crumbs and deep fried.

When you bite into the burger a gush of cheese oozes out, hitting you with a slight tang from the cheddar and a luxurious coating of buttery notes from the Butterkäse.