Our family loves hamburgers. Every Friday is Burger Night, and Ralph spends many hours making his own gourmet patties. So when we go out for a meal, our expectation is for the restaurant to deliver a specially crafted, well thought out and tasty burger – not a mass produced fast food number. We have welcomed the gourmet burger revolution with gusto, and have enjoyed sampling what our city has to offer. We went in search of Port Elizabeth’s finest burgers along the Humewood / Summerstrand beachfront and here are our top 5 choices:

Company Social Brasserie

Since opening a few weeks back, this gem of a restaurant has fast become one of our firm favourites. The incredible location, overlooking McArthur Pools, and the uber cool décor are complemented by fantastic service, interestingly unique food presentation and most importantly divine food. Our top choice is the Co. Burger, which is a generous 200g pure beef patty with bacon, avo, basil pesto mayo, smoked tomato relish and frites. We ditched the fries in lieu of a side salad which came in a cute little jar, and opted for their artisan sesame bun (you can choose which bread your burger comes on). They also offer a Wagyu burger, lamb and chicken burgers and a fabulously delicious vegetarian chickpea burger, which I had on a pita bread. The Co. Burger set us back R75, which is incredible value for money for a gourmet burger that ticked all the right boxes.

The whopping Co. Burger

RocoMamas

We just love this American diner style burger joint. The ordering system, where each person gets a printed menu notepad and pen and ticks off what they want is the bomb. Their milkshakes are sublime – we have drunk our way through the list, from the Crème Brulee, Oreo and Blueberry to the regular strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. Always a perfect prelude to the main course. There are a whole lot of burgers to choose from – you can either opt for one of their pre-selected combinations, or start from scratch with a plain Smashburger (150g beef, chicken or veg), and then select your own toppings. All of our burgers were absolutely delicious and we loved the wire baskets filled with French fries.  A plain burger with chips goes for R54, add a couple of toppings and the average price is around R70.

RocoMamas’ Cheese & Bacon burger

Coachman on the Bay

Well known for its fine dining and incredible steaks, we were delighted to discover that the Coachman also offers a whole page of really affordable and absolutely delicious hamburgers to choose from. Most people only consider taking the whole family to the Coachman on a really special occasion once in a blue moon, but the good news is that you can take the family there for regular meals too, (provided they stick to the burger menu). Their burgers are more traditional than a modern craft burger – the bun is served open with the patty on one half and garnish on the other, and they are easier to eat with a knife and fork than by hand. Their burger patties are home-made, lightly curried and deliciously spiced. The flavour of the creamy mushroom sauce with a hint of liqueur and Dijon mustard on my “George’s” burger was heaven on a plate, and the chips to die for. Most burgers are in the R75 price range, which is not half bad for a fancy meal out.

Coachman’s heavenly George’s burger

Craft

Craft is located in the Boardwalk complex, where Squires used to be. It specialises in craft burgers and beers, and we loved trying out some of their gourmet burgers. Their pricing is a bit odd, as the toppings you choose vastly alter the cost. Most of us opted for a Winemaker, which is the standard burger with onion marmalade (priced at a remarkably low R50, including chips). What it lacked in presentation, it more than made up for in quality, quantity and taste. This was a generous patty on a home-baked bun with a huge portion of chips. Craft’s black bean veg burger also deserves a mention – it was truly delicious. When we visited on a Friday evening, we got to enjoy our burgers while listening to the incredibly talented live musicians, Robert Gilmer & Ferdi Coetzee, who played fantastic cover versions of hits from the past four decades, and made our burger night extra special.

A trio of Winemakers at Craft

Something Good Roadhouse

It was surprisingly difficult to get to sample a Something Good burger, as the place is always packed. We were turned away on six separate occasions and I almost left them out completely, but as so many other PE people had recommended them, and assuming the hoards go there for a reason, we pushed on for the sake of completeness. We decided to try and visit mid-morning, when the breakfast crowd was petering out and the lunchers had not yet arrived in full force, and we hit pay dirt with a little table on the deck.  They have a huge burger menu with some really interesting sounding combinations (the F’Fancy has brie and fig, and The Big Bird is an ostrich patty with beetroot relish). The service was quick, the atmosphere a buzz, and the burgers were indeed something good. The 100g burger sets you back R49-R70 and its 200g big brother goes for R62-R90, depending on your choice of toppings.

An early burger brunch at Something Good

Did we leave any of your favourites out? Please add your recommendations in the comments section below.