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Food guide

How to find a genuinely good burger

Burgers fail in a predictable direction: they get bigger. Height is the easiest thing to add and the least related to whether the thing is good, and a burger you cannot compress to mouth height has been designed for a photograph.

What separates a good one from a bad one

  • The crust on the patty — Browning is flavour. A smash patty pressed hard onto a hot flat-top develops a dark, craggy crust across its whole surface, and that crust is most of why it tastes better than a thicker, paler patty of the same meat.
  • Meat ground close to service, at the right fat ratio — Around 20% fat is the target. Places that grind in-house say so, and it is worth paying attention to.
  • A bun in proportion — The bun should be soft, lightly toasted, and just big enough. A brioche bun twice the height of the patty is the most common single fault in a modern burger.
  • Restraint — Three or four things. A burger with bacon, two cheeses, onion rings, jalapeños and a fried egg is not a better burger, it is a worse one that costs more.
  • Cooked to temperature, if it is thick — A pub-style burger should be ordered and served at a stated temperature. A smash patty is always cooked through by design, and that is correct rather than a failure.

What to order

  • Smash — Thin patties pressed on a flat-top, maximum crust, usually doubled. American cheese, which melts properly, is not a compromise here — it is the right choice.
  • Pub / steakhouse — Thick, medium-rare, on a sturdier bun. A different dish, judged on the meat rather than the crust.
  • Diner — Griddled, simple, with a sliced onion cooked into the patty if you are lucky. The oldest and frequently the best version.
  • Green chile, Juicy Lucy, slugburger, butter burger — Regional versions worth going out of your way for when you are in the right part of the country.
  • The plain one, first visit — Cheeseburger, nothing else. It is the only way to judge the kitchen.

Where to find burgers

Open listings put 27,123 burger joints across the US. These are the cities and campuses with the most of them.

Cities with the most

New York, NY 379 Los Angeles, CA 296 Houston, TX 229 Chicago, IL 215 Las Vegas, NV 195 San Antonio, TX 166 Dallas, TX 145 Austin, TX 144 Orlando, FL 116 Albuquerque, NM 116 Atlanta, GA 113 San Francisco, CA 107

Campuses with the most within a mile

CUNY Graduate Center 103 Touro University 101 NYU 99 FIT 99 The New School 88 Baruch 86 City Colleges of Chicago-Harold Washington College 45 Pace University 44 BMCC 43 John Jay 42

A few to start with

Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.

Burgers near campus

How Savor Scout looks for it

Burger searches read reviews for patty vocabulary — smashed, crusty, griddled, ground in house, cooked to temp — rather than ranking by rating, because the highest-rated burger in a given area is frequently the largest one. If you search for a smash burger specifically, thick pub patties are pushed down even where they score better overall.

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Looking in a particular city?

Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.

All 1,000 cities →

When you might want this

What to eat when you're hungover Where to eat late at night Where to eat on a road trip Where to eat with picky eaters