Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Diners & Drive-Ins
251
Louis' Lunch
Birthplace of the Burger
New Haven, Connecticut
Even if the sign on top didn't say so, you
might guess that this squat brick building
dated from 1895, in view of those arched
red-shuttered windows with their dia-
mond-shaped panes. The story is a bit
more complicated, though: In 1895, Louis'
was just a lunch wagon, serving New
Haven's booming population of European
immigrant factory workers. And though
Louis Lassen eventually moved his busi-
ness into this converted tannery shed in
1917, it has moved twice since then (a
victim of urban renewal), the last time in
1975 to this quiet street behind the quad-
rangles of Yale University. In any case,
Louis' Lunch is the granddaddy of ham-
burger restaurants.
Though there are other contenders,
Louis' Lunch stakes a pretty good claim to
being the birthplace of the hamburger
sandwich in 1900, when Louis Lassen
stuck a patty of broiled ground beef scraps
between two slices of bread to make a
convenient lunch-to-go for customers on
the run. Louis' reserves the right to make
its burgers the same way they've been
making them for over a century. You won't
get a hamburger bun here; the patty is
served on white toast only, toasted in a
vintage 1920s vertical toaster. They'll put
cheese or tomato or grilled onions on it,
but never any ketchup, mustard, or may-
onnaise (condiments just cloak the meat's
taste, claim the Lassens, who still run the
joint today). The meat has been upgraded
since 1900 to a special mix of five different
cuts of beef ground fresh every morning—
the exact proportions are a carefully
guarded secret. But the patties are still
hand formed—no frozen machine-cut
abominations here—and they're broiled
on the same century-old antique broilers
Louis' has been using for years.
Sit at the scarred wooden counter and
you can get a good view of the vintage
broilers: The patties are pressed into a flat
two-sided metal basket and slid into verti-
cal slots in three ornate towers, where gas
flames lap from both sides. The grease
drips down during cooking and drains
away so that the burger is firm and juicy
but never greasy.
Louis' is home to the original “hamburger
sandwich”—still cooked in the original
gas broilers.
