Three burger joints to check out in Vancouver, Sea to Sky Highway

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Monarch Burgers

3034 Main St., Vancouver | monarchburger.ca

Outbound Station

27400 Sea to Sky Highway, Britannia Beach | outboundstation.com

Street Hawker

3088 Main St., Vancouver | streethawker.ca

When I bite into a good burger, I’m bewitched. That juicy synthesis of fat, salt, acid, umami, all mixed — for a lot of folks — with good memories.

Take chef Robert Belcham, who enthralled burger nerds with his Dirty Burger served in the upstairs bar at Campagnolo, the Italian restaurant he ran in Strathcona back then. A couple years later, fans followed to Monarch Burger, his pop-up at The American Bar.

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“Burgers have been around for a very long time and people love them. They’re a ubiquitous meal and hold a lot of memories,” Belcham says. “I grew up in northern Alberta and had them at the hockey arena at a tiny diner called Dog House in Peace River. I have a lot of fond memories of them.”

Noticing an uptick in the burger joint birthrate — comfort food for anxious times — I went to try some of the talked-about newer-borns. And Belcham’s is one of them. In May, he returned with Monarch Burger, this time, in Mount Pleasant in a stand-alone property. It might look like a downward trajectory after statusy stints at French Laundry in Napa Valley and Vancouver’s late C Restaurant, as well as operating Fuel, Refuel and Campagnolo restaurants, but he’s doing exactly what he wants.

“From the perspective of someone whose entire career has been in fine dining and butchery, I’ve taken what I’ve learned and brought it to the burger with the starting point of me as a kid after hockey and my dad buying me a burger. Technically, it’s a lot of small things done correctly and my interpretation of what is great.”

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Belcham has distilled the burger menu into “keep it simple, stupid. No need to make it all kinds of ways. It’s the epitome of a really good, tasty burger.” The menu features a classic burger, a Dirty Burger, the Double Dirty Burger, and a veggie burger along with beef fat fries, and a couple of poutines.

The beef, from 63 Acre, is premium Angus — fed naturally, humane treatment and raised on a handful of partner farms in the North Okanagan. Belcham grinds the meat, mostly brisket with some chuck.

“I love the flavour of brisket and the kind of fat it has. I like the grind to be toothsome, chunky and we make the patties loose to keep it as tender as possible. You want to feel the meat.” He presses diced onions into the burger before it hits the grill.

He’s a bun geek and piggybacks on previous work.

“At Fuel, we tested 25 different burger buns and ended up with a very simple one. Scotch bap is the technical name.” It holds up to juiciness and browns well with a crunch when grilled. “We brush every bap with smoky beef tallow,” he divulges. The pickles are a “quick version my mom used to make all the time, different than ones with a long ferment,” he says. “They’re fresh and crisp and we make them overnight.”

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Belcham’s talked about his secret sauce in interviews but upon light prodding, rattles off the house-made mayo and ketchup, onions, pickles, garlic and various seasonings. “The seasonings are the secret,” he says.

And yes, it’s a great burger. You can also find them at the Kits Pool concession stand, Wednesday to Sunday.

Meanwhile, the year-old Street Hawker burger joint, also in Mount Pleasant, takes the great American burger and emboldens it with Asian flavours, just like Japadog did to the great American hotdog. Street Hawker’s smash beef burgers might have drizzles of umami-packed Hawker sauce (oyster sauce, chili oil, black pepper, pickled mustard greens) or hits of kimchee, terimayo or coconut shrimp or maybe the next-level twinning of beef patty and coconut fried chicken.

“I still want the integrity of good quality beef and not mask it with Asian flavours,” says co-owner Justin Cheung. “Even though it’s Asian influenced, the flavours should hit some nostalgia nerve, depending on where you grew up. It’s an important aspect. My family loves Hawaii so we love the Aloha burger with Spam.”

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Cheung also runs the nearby Potluck Hawker Eatery. “When we started Potluck (during the pandemic), like everyone, we were pivoting, doing different things and one thing that took off was any kind of burger incorporating Asian flavours,” he says. “Something we’ve done at Potluck but haven’t tried at Street Hawker is the Ramly burger,” he says. Instead of a bun, the burger is wrapped in an omelette. “It started in Malaysia around the same time that McDonald’s went there,” Cheung explains. “It’s a late-night street food.”

The grass-fed beef is from Alberta and sourced through Legend’s Haul, a premium product distributor. Smash burgers might hint of violence in the cooking process but there is method and no madness. The idea is to flatten the meat patty on a hot grill for the Maillard reaction and its brown, flavourful crust. Smash burgers were common in the 1920s but lost their place when frozen burger patties — which don’t smash well — hit the market.

“There’s a science when it comes to ratio of fat and lean and a perfect reaction with the griddle,” says Cheung. “You need enough little fat pockets for a crispy edge and crisping up the meat. It took a lot of R&D. It’s also the temperature of the grill, the looseness of the grind and it can’t have been vacuum sealed or the fat leaches out too fast. Every time the beef order comes in, we test it for even the slightest difference of fat-to-lean ratio.”

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The bun, he says, is “in between a brioche and potato bun” and holds up to the sauces.

Street Hawker does regular collaborations with other chefs and runs feature sheets. They recently worked with Downlow Burgers, which operates at The American Bar, to create the DL Hawker Royale — two wagyu smash patties with charcoal tallow, house made salted egg yolk cheese, DL fried chicken skin, tomato, and Hawker sauce.

And nostalgia has been tap-tapping him on the shoulder. “I keep dreaming of growing up, having beef and bitter melon and wonder if I can do a burger with that.” If that hits your nostalgia nerve, keep watching for it on the monthly features menu.

Another burger shop, also about a year old, requires hitting Highway 99: destination, Britannia Beach. “Officially, our spot is called South Britannia,” says Jeffrey Edward, burger lover and proprietor of Outbound Station, which he runs with partner Jordyn Ferreira.

Previously involved in organizing research and tourist voyages to the Arctic and Antarctica, he ended up “chasing wind for kiteboarding in Squamish” when the company went bankrupt, just in time for the pandemic. “My whole life I’ve been super passionate about burgers,” he said. With his business background and Ferreira’s in graphic design and branding, they opened Outbound Station — a sleek, utilitarian burger stand and a separate coffee bar “so each could be one and their own,” he says. “We just really wanted to try and serve the best burger and best coffee.” There’s no dining room but Edward says there soon will be a patio, which will be enclosed in winter.

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They use 100 per cent grass-fed beef from a small collective of ranchers in Alberta. “A big goal was to serve a burger that left you feeling good with a clean feel, not heavy and uncomfortable,” he says. In summer, the ranchers ferment the grass for winter feed, which results in “an incredible flavour.”

The smash burgers are thicker than usual and controlled for consistency with a custom-made smasher. The bun has the butteriness, but not the sweetness of brioche with potato starch added for structure. “We didn’t want too much flavour to take attention away from the beef.”  The top of the bun is branded with an OS, cowgirl style. I’m assuming Ferreira’s design mind was behind it.

The classic burger and nine others populate the menu, including The Jerry, The 10+ in January — created on a warm January day — 99 Problems, an ode to traffic problems on Highway 99, and only on weekends the Doughnut Burger, a breakfast burger on a doughnut made by Fox and Oak bakery in Squamish.

At the coffee bar next door, they sell their own blend and I noted the croffle, a waffle croissant and soft gelato. I’m not a big fan of clownish croissant concepts, but I might try this.

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SIDE DISHES

Victoria’s Crust Bakery are clues to deliciousness inside. And yes, locals eagerly patronize the shop for the muffins, scones, squares, cookies, cakes, breads, pies and tarts. And now, the goodness spreads with a cookbook that’ll hit shelves in September Crust: Essential Sweets and Savories from Victoria’s Beloved Bakeries by co-founder Tom Moore. Among the 85 recipes are the popular lemon passion fruit slice, vanilla crème brûlée and treats that reflect Moore’s Australian background, like the Tom Tams — a play on Tim Tams, Australia’s favourite cookie, that’s two malted biscuits separated by a chocolate cream filling and coated in chocolate — and the Aussie crunch rolls.

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