How To Make An Award-Winning Burger—According To A ‘Top Chef’

What does it take to make an award-winning burger? In Colorado, 20 restaurants will put forth their prized patties for the annual Denver Burger Battle, a beloved competition that draws hungry travelers to a state that’s known for its food fests like Aspen Food & Wine and the Chile and Frijoles Festival in Pueblo.

Some contenders for the Aug. 1, 2024 competition will elevate classic burgers, like Ultreia’s Jamónburguesa, a jazzed up Big Mac presented as a double cheeseburger with Portuguese 1000 Island dressing, lettuce, and pickles.

Others will appeal to Coloradans by incorporating green chiles: Blue Moon Brewery’s “slopper” is a nod to the Pueblo, Colorado-born slopper, a burger that’s smothered in green chili. The brewery will make its burger patty with brisket and short rib and pile on caramelized onions, American cheese, queso and a homemade pork green chili.

But many chefs will get inventive with their hamburgers, convincing the masses (and the judges) to rethink toppings. Some stellar examples include Edgewater Beer Garden’s Chimi Hendrix burger topped with chimichurri, crispy onion straws, smoked gouda, chili crunch and mashed potatoes and The 49th Food & Spirits poutine-inspired burger with fried cheese curds and maple cream cheese.

At the end of the night votes are tallied, and the best burgers are crowned, with awards coming from a judging panel and from attendees who can cast votes for the “People’s Choice” award.

To find out what it takes to make the best hamburger during the height of grilling season, I turned to some major players at the Denver Burger Battle. Chef Manny Barella, a contestant on Season 21 of Bravo’s “Top Chef” is among those on this year’s judging panel. He’s the culinary director of Camp Pickle, which is opening in Denver and Tulsa in 2025, and Jaguar Bolera, which opened in Raleigh this year and will debut in Atlanta next. I also chatted with the team at Cherry Cricket, a popular burger bar and repeat winner that took home the People’s Choice award last year for its Cricket Royale burger that featured braised short rib and bone marrow among other accouterments.

Here’s the secret sauce to an award-winning burger, according to the experts:

1. Focus on the Burger Itself

Most burgers in America are seasoned with a little salt and pepper and tend to taste the same, says Barella, who grew up in Mexico. His trick? Cook down vegetables like onions and garlic then fold them into the meat with your seasonings. “That way, the meat is also seasoned inside and not just on the outside,” Barella says. If you’re cooking on a flat top, try adding extra pepper on the outside—open fire burns the peppercorn too quickly.

If the burger tastes great on its own, the cheese, toppings, and bun are there to play a supporting cast role. Barella’s motto: “In order to be extraordinary do ordinary things extraordinarily well.” (Though, he admits, he’s a sucker for a truffle mayo).

2. Follow This Formula For Toppings

After you pull a burger from the grill, it’s a habit to start piling on the toppings. But there’s an art to how everything is layered. Barella recommends this order: Bun, onions, lettuce, tomato, burger patty with cheese, bun. The weight of the patty weighs down the toppings and the tomato provides a nice barrier to keep the lettuce fresh.

3. Don’t Overcomplicate Things

“The more things you put on a plate, the more things you’re going to get judged on.” That’s some advice that celebrity chef Tom Colicchio once gave Barella.

4. Toast Your Buns

If you’re hosting a barbecue, go the extra mile and toast your buns instead of serving them straight out of the package. “When you heat up a brioche bun all that butter in the bread warms up and creates a nice layer of crispiness,” Barella says.

5. Strike a Balance

Returning and repeat champ Cherry Cricket knows a thing or two about creating award-winning burgers. The team dreamed up “The Cry-Baby” for this year’s burger battle. It’s a creative twist on the classic comfort food: French onion soup. The meaty masterpiece is topped with a toasty crostini, cave-aged Gruyère, bone marrow caramelized onions, frico (a crispy-crunchy fried cheese), and onion strings. It’s cradled between a rosemary potato bun with a schmear of French onion dip and a sidecar of soup for dipping.

“This way, we can cater to both adventurous foodies looking for something new and those who appreciate the comforting taste of a classic burger,” says Alex Bunn, CMO and VP of Growth for Breckenridge-Wynkoop, LLC.

Cherry Cricket prepares for battle months in advance. All three Cherry Cricket locations come up with what they believe is an award-winning burger, Bunn says, experimenting with ingredients, testing flavors, refining the concepts, and taking into account consumer trends. Then, employees participate in a blind taste test to pick the burger that has the strongest shot at winning.

The Cry-Baby burger will be showcased at all Cherry Cricket locations throughout August as a specialty limited-edition menu item.

“We hope everyone enjoys it as much as we do so it’ll become a staple on our award-winning burger menu,” Bunn says.