The Ray's Hell Burger Experience

My "Hell Burger," de-constructed.

My "Hell Burger," 4 seconds away from being eaten.

Sarah's "Hell Burger," ready for action!

After writing and reading about burgers all day yesterday, Sarah, Amelia, and I couldn’t stand it any longer. We had to make the trip out to Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, VA for a much-needed burger fix. Oddly enough, though Hell Burger bears the name of “Ray’s,” it’s actually part of an ever-growing “Ray’s” franchise started by owner and chef Michael Landrum, who has cooked throughout Europe and worked the front of such DC food institutions as Nora, Capital Grille, and Morton’s Steakhouse. His flagship restaurant, Ray’s the Steaks, is the “anti-Morton’s”: a steakhouse that focuses on in-house dry-aged prime steaks, but without the frills and with only half the pretentiousness.

Hell Burger takes the best of Ray’s the Steaks (the dry-aged prime beef) and grinds it daily in-house to make 10-ounce hand-formed patties of meaty goodness. As if that isn’t good enough, Hell Burger offers a boatload of toppings. The cheeses alone are an impressive array, ranging from the pedestrian (Swiss, Vermont white cheddar, pepper jack, and more), to the intriguing (aged Danish bleu, gruyere, double cream brie, mustard seed Dutch Gouda), to the “I can’t believe I can get this on a burger (Chimay a la biere, cave-aged Irish cheddar, and Epoisse!). In addition to the plethora of cheeses, there is an equally impressive showing of other toppings (aside from the traditional lettuce, tomato, pickle offerings), including applewood smoked bacon, seared foie gras with truffle oil, roasted garlic, guacamole, roasted bone marrow with persillade, sautéed peppers, grilled onions, cognac and sherry sautéed mushrooms, charred jalapeños, roasted chestnut puree, and a runny butter fried egg. Hungry yet? There’s more. The meat itself can be prepared in four different fashions: grilled (seasoned with a secret steak blend), au poivre (if you don’t know what this is, you should be ashamed), blackened (seasoned with a blend of Cajun spices), and Diablo (grilled with a spicy chipotle sauce). Oh yeah, another thing: there are a ton of sauces available as well, including BBQ sauce, Pirañha sauce (a very spicy green chile sauce), and Ray’s Heck sauce, which is like Pirañha sauce-lite. All the burgers come on a toasted brioche bun, and are cooked to whatever heat you’d like, but they recommend a medium rare burger for optimal taste pleasure.

The combinations are enough to befuddle even the most savvy burger eating champions who wish to create their own “Hell Burger.” If making your own is too overwhelming, Landrum has a number of pre-thought-out burger combinations that might give you some inspiration, such as “Soul Burger Number One” (bacon, swiss cheese, cognac/sherry sautéed mushrooms, grilled red onions), “B.I.G. Poppa” (au poivre burger, aged Danish bleu cheese, cognac and sherry sautéed mushrooms, and grill onions), “New Jack Zing” (blackened burger, pepper jack cheese, grilled onions, charred jalapeños, and sautéed peppers), and “The Dogcatcher” (roasted bone marrow, persillade, lettuce and tomato). For those not feeling the beef love, they even have a venison burger, a Hanoi-style wild boar burger, buffalo burger, and grilled marinated Portobello mushroom burgers. (Side note: I’m now officially hungry for burgers again.) For sides, Hell Burger is finally offering two types of fries (skin-on potato fries, and sweet potato fries). They also make a heck of a shake (more on that below).

All of this is the food undercard to the main event, which is our dinner last night at Hell Burger. To avoid the long lines that usually accompany this place (due to a combo of the small seating areas and President Obama’s endorsement of Hell Burger as THE burger place to be), Sarah, Amelia, and I met up for an early dinner. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves, which was awesome.

With no line to wait in, we were quickly forced to make our burger decisions. Sarah ordered a medium au poivre burger with roasted garlic, gruyere cheese, grilled onions, cognac and sherry sautéed mushrooms, and Ray’s Heck sauce. I ordered a medium-rare regular grilled burger with double cream brie, grilled onions, cognac and sherry sautéed mushrooms, Pirañha sauce, BBQ sauce, charred jalapeños, and applewood smoked bacon. We also ordered a side of skin-on French fries, some Mac-and-Cheese for Amelia, and a Black Cow milkshake for dessert.

Thanks to there being no line, we didn’t have to wait too long for our burgers to arrive. Nevertheless, the mere minutes between ordering and seeing our food come to our table was agonizing! (This is what talking about burgers all day will do to you.) When the food arrived, we were not disappointed. Staring back at us were two behemoth burgers from another dimension. Open-faced, they took up nearly the entire plate. Each side of the bun was happily overloaded with toppings just beckoning to be eaten. I couldn’t wait to take the first bite.

As soon as I bit into the burger, I was met with an explosion of flavor in my mouth. The burger, cooked perfectly medium-rare, was sweet, tender, with a deliciously piquant hint of salt, black pepper, and garlic on the back end. The double cream brie (with rind on, thankfully) added a nutty and silky consistency, which was contrasted wonderfully by the crunchy fireworks created by the charred jalapeños and the devilishly spicy Pirañha sauce. Rounding out the flavors were the earthy-yet-sweet combo of the grilled onions, sautéed mushrooms, and the applewood smoked bacon. With each flavor-packed bite, juice from the beef lusciously dripped down my hands. It was heavenly. After my first bite, my only worry was that I would eat the burger too quickly before I could even savor the flavors and the experience.

And that’s really what Hell Burger is all about: the experience. I don’t go to Hell Burger often, but the burgers are so unbelievably good, I can remember every burger I’ve had there. This burger was no exception to that rule—I will remember this burger for a long, long time. (Sarah seemed to really like her burger as well, for what it’s worth. And Amelia obliterated her Mac-and-Cheese, which actually was quite lovely.)

As far as the side offerings were concerned, the fries were very good. There was a nice crispness on the outside to them, no doubt enhanced by the “skin-on” nature of the potatoes. In that respect, they are like Five Guys’ basic, non-Cajun fries. For some reason, the fries on the top were not as well-salted as the fries on the bottom. Nevertheless, we were not deterred from eating the entire serving.

The shake also was fantastic. I’ve been burned by Black Cow milkshakes in the past (I’m looking at you, Good Stuff Eatery), but this one won me over in a big way. Unlike the Black Cows in the past, this one actually blended in the chocolate syrup so that sweet ribbons of silky chocolate danced playfully with the airiness of the vanilla ice cream and milk. It was like drinking the best chocolate milk you’ve ever had and then blending in two heaping scoops of vanilla ice cream. SO GOOD.

All in all, I’m glad Sarah suggested we hit Ray’s Hell Burger for what was a fantastic burger experience. It satisfied my burger “jones” for a while, and provided me yet another amazing burger experience.

Burger: 9.8

Fries: 7.4

Shake: 9.7

P.S. After last night’s meal, I realized that I am going to have to alter my burger challenge a bit because, for me, comparing Hell Burger and a place like 5 Guys is like comparing “coffee and donuts” dessert at French Laundry to a pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream. They both fall in the same category of food, but they are not necessarily direct competitors. In the burger world, Hell Burger is an upscale burger masquerading as a burger for the masses, even though the restaurant is decidedly NOT fast-food (much like Ray’s the Steaks is an upscale steakhouse trying to be a down home restaurant, even though it isn’t). On the other hand, Five Guys is a burger joint that knows and IS exactly what it says it is: a “modest burger shack” serving the “best fast food burgers,” as the article Jenn posted shows. The burger at Ray’s is transcendent. But it’s a special occasion burger, not a burger you’d have on a regular basis. Five Guys, by contrast, is exactly the place you go when you want a great “everyday” burger. I think the comparison will have to be Five Guys v. ShakeShack, and then a separate Bobby’s Burger Palace vs. Ray’s Hell Burger.