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Mott St
Mott St is, first and foremost, an Asian fusion restaurant in Chicago's Wicker Park/West Town area — Korean street food sits at its core, with flavors pulled in from Japan, China, Mexico, and Italy across the rest of the menu. The burger isn't the restaurant's original concept, but chef/partner Edward Kim's Mott Street Burger has become one of the things the restaurant is most specifically known for among people who might otherwise never think to order a burger at a Korean-inspired restaurant. The burger itself reflects the kitchen's wider sensibility rather than playing it straight: double chuck patties, hoisin aioli, pickled jalapeños, and sweet potato frizzles on a brioche bun, balancing sweet and spicy in a way that's distinctly Mott St rather than a conventional diner or smashburger build. One detail matters for anyone planning a visit specifically for the burger — it's only available at the bar, and only after 7pm, which keeps it feeling like an insider order rather than a standard menu item available all day. That restriction is part of what's built the burger's specific cult following: it's not the headline dish on the menu, and Mott St isn't marketed as a burger restaurant, so ordering it requires knowing to ask for it at the right time in the right seat — the kind of detail that turns a good burger into a specifically-sought-out one. Mott St's broader Korean street food menu — the restaurant's actual core identity — gives the burger useful context: this is a kitchen already comfortable working with bold, sweet-savory-spicy flavor combinations across an entire menu, which is exactly the skill set that makes hoisin aioli and pickled jalapeños on a burger feel considered rather than like a novelty mashup. Regulars who come specifically for the burger are, whether they realize it or not, benefiting from a kitchen that spent years developing that flavor sensibility on dishes that have nothing to do with beef. Mott St is chef Edward Kim's second restaurant, following Ruxbin, which he opened in Wicker Park in 2011 with his wife Jenny, sister Vicki, and friend Nate Chung after training in kitchens in Los Angeles, Seoul, and New York — including a stint under Thomas Keller at Per Se. Mott St followed two years later as a more casual, family-style counterpart to Ruxbin's tasting-menu format, and it's since become a 13-time Michelin Bib Gourmand recipient, recognition for the kitchen's broader Korean street food menu rather than the burger specifically. That fine-dining pedigree matters for understanding the burger's construction: Kim isn't a burger chef improvising a Korean twist, he's a Per Se-trained cook applying the same technique and flavor-balancing instincts he uses across Mott St's whole menu to a single bar-only, after-7pm item most diners don't even know to ask for. For a Chicago cheeseburger list, Mott St is the essential "fusion kitchen's secret burger" entry — proof that some of the city's best cheeseburgers are coming out of kitchens that aren't burger restaurants at all, built by chefs applying a completely different cuisine's techniques to a very American format.
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Au Cheval
Au Cheval opened in Chicago's West Loop in 2012 and has spent over a decade as the reigning name in a city with no shortage of burger competition — of every hyped burger in Chicago, it likely has the longest continuous run of rave reviews, and it's regularly cited among the best cheeseburgers in America, not just the city. That's a genuinely rare thing to sustain for more than ten years in a food scene that turns over trends constantly. The restaurant itself is built as a diner-style bar with a real passion for eggs — the broader menu runs to chopped chicken liver, roasted bone marrow, and egg-focused entrées — but the double cheeseburger is what the wait is actually for. It's a thick, griddled patty built with real diner technique rather than smash-style speed, finished simply enough that the beef and cheese do the talking. That wait is a genuine part of the experience and not a small one: Au Cheval doesn't take reservations, seating is limited, and dinner waits upwards of two hours aren't unusual — a level of commitment most burger spots can't ask of customers and get away with. That it still pulls the crowd anyway, more than a decade after opening, is the clearest evidence of how the burger holds up against the hype. Part of what separates Au Cheval from a typical bar-and-grill burger is restraint dressed up as excess — the patty itself is thick and griddled with real technique, but the build stays close to a classic diner cheeseburger rather than piling on novelty toppings the way some "best burger in America" contenders do. The dry-aged, egg-forward menu around it signals a kitchen that could easily overcomplicate the burger and deliberately chose not to, letting the beef, cheese, and griddle char do all the work instead. That discipline is a big part of why it's held its reputation for over a decade in a city that churns through burger trends constantly. Au Cheval was Brendan Sodikoff's second restaurant after Gilt Bar, the craft-cocktail bar he opened in 2010 following a stint as a creative-development officer under Lettuce Entertain You's Richard Melman — training that shaped his approach to building out what's since grown into Hogsalt Hospitality, a group now running dozens of Chicago restaurants and bars. The space itself was remodeled from a former Greektown Gyros storefront to look like a diner that had already been there for decades, hand-painted signage included. Bon Appétit went further than most, naming the Au Cheval burger the single best burger in America outright, cementing a reputation Sodikoff then leveraged into Small Cheval, a faster-casual spinoff built around the same burger for people unwilling to brave the original's wait. For a Chicago cheeseburger list, Au Cheval is the essential "this is the one everyone talks about" entry — a diner-elevated, thick-patty burger from a kitchen that built its reputation on eggs and offal just as much as beef, in a West Loop room that still can't clear its own waitlist a decade in.
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