The Berghoff - 17 W Adams St, Chicago, IL
It amazes me that I, a life long Chicagoan never made it to the Berghoff before last Saturday. This place is a long running Chicago institution and very well known for it's primarily German and occasionally American cuisine.
The wife and I stopped in here after a concert at Millennium Park for dinner and I was wowed by the layout. According to my mom, this place used to be bigger, with an upstairs and downstairs dining room as well as a bar. Now, the downstairs dining room was turned into a cafe, that has limited hours of business.
We were seated in a nice corner of the large dining room and started out with their stuffed mushroom appetizer, which was delicious. I obviously tried the burger, as it is pictured above. It came with bacon, cheddar, lettuce, tomato and barbecue sauce, no ketchup. Instead of fries, you get Berghoff chips, which are somewhere between fries and potato chips. I wasn't too into them, but I was starving, so I still managed to finish them off.
The first thing I noticed was that it was cooked exactly how I ordered it, which is a huge huge bonus for any burger place. The roll it was served on was decent, but left me wishing for an egg-bun or a pretzel roll. The meat was excellent and cooked just right. The bonus was that you could taste the flame in the burger (which I absolutely love.) It wasn't the juiciest burger I've ever had, but it had enough juice to keep the burger from being dry.
The downside was that the bacon was thick cut and not crispy at all. I don't like soggy bacon, but I usually don't take bacon on my burger anyway, so no harm, no foul. Next time, I'll either order it crispy or just ask them to hold it.
I definitely recommend stopping in at the Berghoff when in Chicago. If not for the burger, then for the atmosphere and their home made root beer.
Posts
