Louis’ Lunch, New Haven, CT

For anyone who has ever watched any type of food special on the History Channel they would have a good idea of what the deal is at Louis’ Lunch in New Haven. Their claim to fame is that they made the first Hamburger in the United States. Even the library of congress acknowledges them as the first to create the hamburger. The following paragraph should be a quick history lesson for those who don’t know about Louis’ Lunch, but you know what?... I’m too goddamn lazy to write one. If you don’t know about Louis’ Lunch, you’ve probably got no business reading a food review blog. Just go to google or wikipedia or something. Go do it now, I’ll be waiting for you to get back. It’s like someone from Jersey Shore trying the read a particle physics textbook, it just doesn’t make any goddamn sense. Take a quick second to just imagine Snooki trying to read a book about Einstein’s theory of relativity. Didn’t that brighten up your day? I know it did for me.The name of the place is actually quite misleading. Having a restaurant named Louis’ Lunch insinuates that one would be open for lunch, but instead the place has some rather odd hours of operation. The many times I have attempted to get one of the famed burgers during my lunch hour when I worked in New Haven, I have always found the place to be closed and locked up. For some odd reason I just assumed that the place was closed down. One night while going to go clubbing in New Haven, and having realized I didn’t want to pay $9 to get into a building and listen to crappy music and then have to may $6 for a drink, a friend offered to go to Louis’ Lunch. I guess “lunch” at Louis’ Lunch means 4pm-2am.The famous burger at Louis’ Lunch is incredible simple: a hearty patty of beef, a thick slice of tomato, cheese, and some onions, all between two slices of grilled white bread. The meat in the burger itself is cooked to perfection in Louis’ special vertical antique grills. The original flavour of the meat is not overdone in the cooking process, and all the other parts in the sandwich do not cover and outdo one another. The people at Louis’ Lunch are rather adamant about not having any condiments on their perfected burger. When the local drunkards would come in and ask for ketchup on their burgers they are told kindly yet firmly that they don’t put up with that kind of shit.

The size of the burger is actually quite large and is well enough a meal for any time of the day, may it be a little after lunch time or a 1am post drinking meal. The blend of flavours in the burgers is just about perfect and does not need to be changed. I don’t know if it is the way they cook the burgers that makes it so good, or they just have the original recipe and never changed it. Hell, if it ain’t broken don’t fix it. That what I always say.