This is what a burger says about a restaurant

Montreal's got a rich history as a diner town, and these days, it seems like anyone can make a burger. It’s a simple format built on familiarity—bun, patty, toppings, and you're done—but simplicity is a trap. The second you put a burger on your menu, you’re telling people who you are. Are you nostalgic or ambitious? Maximalist or precise? Do you lean into comfort, technique, speed, tradition—or break the whole thing open?

Every year, Le Burger Week returns with hundreds of answers to that question. It’s a citywide exercise in indulgence, creativity, and endurance: Restaurants here and all across Canada offer their burgers, diners explore the map, taste what excites them, and vote for the ones they love. 

But this year, we’re not here to list 50 places you’ll never make it to in seven days. We’re focusing on five restaurants where the Burger Week entry is a mirror of who they are.

A burger always says more than it lets on, and it's surprising to find out where these entries all start, from staff meals and memories to flexes and revivals of beloved local projects.

Monk Café Buvette: The burger is a memory

When chef Thomas Daoust talks about food, he doesn’t lead with flavour profiles or technique. He talks about his grandfather. “He was my hero,” says the chef at Monk Café Buvette. “He got me into cooking. He always supported me—especially when others didn’t.” So when it came time to create something for Burger Week, Daoust used the occasion to honour his memory.

It sparked a burger that’s all about fullness—of flavour, of nostalgia, and of feeling. A smoky homemade BBQ sauce spiked with apples and liquid smoke. A bacon jam made from Monk Café Buvette’s house-braised ham and caramelized onions. Crispy shallots, because “he loved crunchy things.” And Oka cheese, the only kind his grandfather ever kept in the fridge. “Anytime it was on sale, he’d stock up—and he’d always give me slices,” Daoust says.

It’s a personal creation, but it also fits where Monk is headed. Once a daytime café, the Ville-Émard spot has spent the past year leaning deeper into its evening identity: a casual buvette with thoughtful food, sharp service, and a sense of occasion that doesn’t feel pretentious. “Fast food’s everywhere. But going out to eat should feel like something,” Daoust says. “I want people to leave feeling full. Not just from the food—but from the moment.”

Mauvais Garçons: The burger is the restaurant

Chef Robert Goldberg didn’t invent the dish he’s putting forward for Burger Week. One of his sous-chefs did—on a whim, with leftover elements from ribs, fried chicken, and buns lying around the kitchen: A one-off staff meal that hit so hard, it never left the menu. “It was just so good,” says Goldberg. “We needed to put it on.”

Now a Mauvais Garçons staple, the mini fried chicken sliders are everything the restaurant’s about: comfort without compromise, technique without snobbery, and flavour first, always. The bird is buttermilk-brined for 24 hours, then dredged in a house-seasoned flour blend and fried until golden. It’s hit with a house barbecue sauce—sweet, spicy, smoky—and topped with fresh slaw on a pillowy brioche bun.

“It’s not just three sliders,” Goldberg says. “It’s everything we do in a bun. We’re comfort food, but with no rules.”

Resto-Bar Le Pick-Up: The burger is just another week

Burger Week isn’t a big gear shift for chef Marc Giroux. It’s just another Tuesday.

“We’re always changing the burger,” he says. “It’s kind of what we do.” At Resto-Bar Le Pick-Up in Hochelaga, the burger of the moment is a constant presence. So when the Burger Week invite came around, the team didn’t scramble. They already had a build lined up.

This one’s a seasonal remix: blue cheese and crispy bacon with housemade tomato-jalapeño jam, fresh jalapeño slices, crispy onions, and arugula—all tied together with a sweet-savoury heat that balances punch with comfort. And as always, it’s served on bread made in-house. “We do that to keep the quality up and the cost down,” Giroux says. “It gives us a better palette to create with.”

All of this is served in a place that still looks a bit like the Belle Pro it used to be. And that feels right too: It's a neighbourhood hangout with natural wine, beer, and diner aesthetic that feeds its neighbours first and its ego last.

“I wouldn’t call it elevated,” Giroux says. “We just want people to come in, hang out, and be like—whoa, this is actually a crazy good burger.”

Fabergé: The burger is a comeback

Burger Week is a sneak peek into something deeper at the Mile End brunch institution Fabergé: After a short-lived but widely loved pop-up last summer called Loosies, Devin De Sousa and Jude Deverze of Boucherie Capitol are using the occasion to bring it back.

The featured dish? A daytime fondue burger built with Saint-Paulin cheese fondue, crispy onions, house-pickled veg, and Fabergé’s signature mayo.

“It’s a revival,” says De Sousa, who first launched Loosies with friends and collaborators across the food scene. That pop-up built a cult following through tight execution, fast service, and burgers that felt familiar but dialled in. “Every burger that was going out had 110% attention,” he says. “It was the quality of the product, and the people behind it.”

This time around, the team is leaner—just De Sousa and Deverze—but the goal is the same: keep it classic, keep it affordable, keep it good. The new menu will launch September 1, with smash burgers running into the evening and a streamlined operation run by a new chef who also happens to be an old face: Daniel Adams, who last worked at Fabergé 13 years ago, is back in the kitchen.

Burger Bar Crescent: The burger is all about going big

There’s no second-guessing Burger Bar Crescent. It is big, bold, and doesn’t flinch during Burger Week.

“We’re not looking to make a profit,” says co-owner Morris Baker. “We’re looking to make a point.”

That point? That 15 years on, Burger Bar is still the benchmark and a legacy player with Burger Week. Their 2025 entry, Le Nordique, is Quebec Wagyu beef, melted cheese curds on the flat top, two types of bacon (back and candied), crispy fried onions, caramelized onions, arugula tossed in balsamic, house garlic mayo, and a maple-garlic reduction on a sesame brioche bun.

It’s indulgent—unapologetically so—and at $29.95, it’s underpriced by design. “This should be a $75 burger,” Baker says. “But we want people to come in and go—that’s why they’re the best burger place in Montreal.”

True to form, it's something maximalist, precise, and personal. Every element is done in-house. Every choice is deliberate. “You’re going to find restaurants that do parts of what we do,” Baker says. “But not like this.”

Le Jus: The burger is a first step

Justin Bragg opened Le Jus to do something that felt true to him—something simple, intentional, and personal. “I’m a minimalist,” he says. “I don’t want it overcomplicated. But I want you to taste everything I said was in it.”

His Montreal-inspired Burger Week creation reflects that: cream cheese, everything bagel seasoning, fresh jalapeños, and a spicy honey butter. “It’s a little nod to being here eight years now,” he says. “An homage to the bagels, the flavours, the feeling of calling Montreal home.”

Le Jus may be new to NDG—just two months into its brick-and-mortar run—but Bragg has been cooking burgers for most of his career. The name itself is a layered pun: a play on “jus” for juicy, a reference to his nickname, and a not-so-subtle way of clarifying that no, this isn’t a juice bar. (“We only have Sunny D,” he jokes.)

This burger, like the restaurant, is a first step, a quiet flex, and statement of intent from someone still figuring out how to tell his story through food. “Everything I make is something I’ve had in my life,” Bragg says. “Everything has its own story. I’m just starting to share mine.”

Patty Slaps: The burger is science and art

Patty Slaps cooks from instinct, data, and a full-on in-house concept committee. “We’re a very curated brand,” says Melina Yousefi, the restaurant's marketing strategist. “We build our burgers carefully, intentionally, and with flavour and identity in mind.”

Hot on the heels of a Top 5 win last year for their Bacon Blaze burger, this year’s Burger Week entry is no exception—especially impressive given it came together in a single day. The Big Jang is a stacked triple-patty burger topped with house-made gochujang aioli, triple cheese, crispy onions, bacon, and the custom tweak of a sesame finish to their pretzel bun to complement the Korean flavour profile. “We wanted to do something creative and fun,” says Yousefi. “But still distinctly Patty Slaps.”

That brand identity—bold, fast, playful, and tech-influenced—runs deep. Before a new burger drops, the team runs internal taste tests. Every product reflects a mix of “art, community, and technology,” and sometimes even borrows from global food trend research.

Paulo & Suzanne: The burger is a family recipe

When you’ve been in the burger game for 45 years, there’s not a lot you haven’t done. But for the family behind Paulo & Suzanne, that’s the challenge—and the fun—of Burger Week. “We’ve been part of it since the beginning,” says owner Alexia Serfas. “So every year, we push ourselves to come up with something new.”

This year’s entry? A classic cheeseburger remix called the Burger Moo-moo Pok-pok—named after a staff nickname and built around something the restaurant has never done before: combining two of their best sellers in one. It stacks crispy homemade fried chicken with a AAA beef patty, grilled onions, jalapeño cheese, and their famous house southwest mayo. “It sounds greasy,” Serfas admits, “but it’s all homemade and top quality. That’s what defines us.”

At its core, the burger captures exactly what makes Paulo & Suzanne a Montreal institution: playful, proud, a little over-the-top, and always rooted in flavour. Everything is tested with regulars, and nothing goes on the menu unless it’s been put through the family filter—which in this case includes Alexia and her father Angelo (the burger’s creator).

“We're a diner,” says Serfas, “but we're also part of Montreal’s food history. This burger just adds one more chapter.”

You can dress a burger up in nostalgia or drown it in barbecue sauce. You can keep it cheap or load it with Wagyu and goldleaf. You can build it in five minutes or over five years. The point isn’t to find the “best” one—it’s to notice what each one reveals.

Repetition is easy in a city saturated with burger joints, but the ones that stand out tell you something about a kitchen, a cook, a comeback, or a memory worth revisiting. And that’s what makes them worth it. How it's made tells everyone exactly who they are.