A burger at Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers (Shattuck), a sandwich shop in Berkeley, California.
out of 100 · legendary
Legendary. Every gate clear, the board clean.
A burger with layers outside the form; six of six roles.
More salt than 90% of the catalog.
Each bar is one pillar of the score, 0 to 100. The tick marks what a sandwich at the summit needs; an amber bar is the one holding this sandwich back.
Burger Bun (bread not stated on the menu), toasted: beef patty; bacon; cheddar cheese; lettuce; tomato; red onion; pickles; 1000 island dressing.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 2.2 | 90th |
| acid | 1.4 | 86th |
| fat | 2.4 | 60th |
| sweet | 0.8 | 83rd |
| umami | 1.8 | 63rd |
| heat | 0.2 | 66th |
| bitter | 0.1 | 47th |
98 Balance, out of 100
The seven flavor axes of the whole sandwich, each summed across its layers. The shaded ring is the catalog's middle 80%; the small number under each axis is where this sandwich falls in the catalog. A shape that sits inside the ring is in the range most sandwiches live in; a spike past it is where this one stands apart.
What each layer brings
| Layer | Role | Flavor and texture | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burger Bun | bread | sweet 2 soft springy | the frame |
| beef pattyscored as Beef | protein | fat 3 umami 3 juicy chewy tender | +3 |
| bacon | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 crispy chewy | +1 |
| cheddar cheese | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 soft gooey melty | +3 |
| lettuce | texture | crunchy juicy fresh | 0 |
| tomato | texture | acid 3 umami 3 sweet 2 juicy soft fresh | +2 |
| red onionscored as Onion | texture | sweet 2 crunchy juicy fresh | 0 |
| picklesscored as Pickle (cucumber) | acid | acid 5 salt 4 crunchy juicy pickled | +9 |
| 1000 island dressingscored as Russian Dressing (Thousand Island) | sauce | fat 4 salt 2 acid 2 sweet 2 creamy saucy | −1 |
Points: what the Sandwich Score would lose if that one layer were left out, everything else the same. A negative number means the sandwich scores higher without it. Flavor runs 0 to 5 on each axis.
Pairings
- Beef + Cheddar Cheese: the cheeseburger pair: sharp on seared beef
- Beef + Onion: onions sweeten seared beef, philly style
- Beef + Pickle (cucumber): pickle brine against rich beef
- Bacon + Cheddar Cheese: bacon cheddar: smoke and sharp, burger law
- Bacon + Lettuce: cool crunch against hot smoke
- Bacon + Tomato: smoke against sweet acid, the blt core
- Cheddar Cheese + Tomato: grilled cheese and tomato, the lunch pair
- Cheddar Cheese + Onion: cheddar and onion, the ploughman's pair
All the sandwiches at Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers (Shattuck) · The menu this was read from · Build your own in the Sandwich Builder