One Great Dish: G&O's Thin Double Patty

By Kristine Sherred in Food on Jun 23, 2015 4:25PM

The G&O Burger (Photo: Aiden Dillon for G&O)

Waiting three hours for a diner burger is so 2013. Skip the lines and head west to Grand & Ogden’s garage bar (459 N. Ogden Ave.) opened by pub food stalwarts of The Aberdeen Tap. The menu, short and sweet, plays host to many winners— from the fried chicken, fig jam and egg English muffin brunch sandwich to the beautifully simple house burger, available any time.

At my first cookout of the summer, I was surprised but not shocked to see the pretty butter-glazed brioche buns fly from the platter well before the pretzels. In fact, the pretzels also lost to the lowly onion buns! Believe it, Chicago— the pretzel bun is done. Allow us to focus on what makes us true Americans: grilled meat, onion, white and yellow cheese, ketchup, mustard and pleated pickles.

Enter the thin-griddled double patty burger. Edzo's’s made the name in Chicago, then Au Cheval claimed the fame (and a few extra dollars). Burger fans, however, would be foolish to not focus more of their attention on the classic American burgers quietly surfacing on menus around town.

The G&O burger does not disappoint. The meat retains just enough of its rosy middle that your inner carnivore forgets all about the hunk of beef weighing down even the best of burgers elsewhere. There is something ebullient about the thin patty, doubled or not, that denies guilt and offers pure meaty satisfaction in precisely the right dose. Topped with a traditional smorgasbord minus the lettuce and tomato, this burger has me convinced that no patty should sit between anything but brioche.

For $10 (only $6 on Tuesdays) including skinny fries, America never tasted so good.

Thin griddle burgers have since appeared on the recently opened Game Room menu at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel and The Broken Shaker at Freehand Hostel. Give the neighborhood bar its due and take a hand to the new fancy at G&O.