My 5 Favorite Spots For A Burger In Los Angeles

There might be no more important food in Los Angeles than the humble hamburger. Sure, LA is also considered the sushi capital of the United States, and its plethora of must-try Mexican restaurants are nothing to sneeze at, but at its core, LA is a burger town. After all, Southern California is the unofficial birthplace of fast food, and many of the sector's most prominent burger slingers — McDonald's, Carl's Jr., and In-N-Out, to name a few — were founded in the region. Beyond the major chains, LA is home to so many treasured local burger spots, ranging from roadside shacks to gourmet restaurants, that you could probably eat a new burger every day for years on end.

All of this means one thing: we Angelenos take our burgers very seriously. There have been countless debates over the best burger in Los Angeles in online forums and in my own living room. When I informally polled my friends for their picks, almost nobody gave the same answer. Within the city, you'll find smash burger enthusiasts, thick burger loyalists, hour-long lines at every single In-N-Out drive-thru at all times, and about 60 different burger joints called "Tommy's." Despite the abundant choices, a lifetime of LA living means I've managed to eat my way through many of its most beloved burgers and select my top five favorites. Other Angelenos might take umbrage with my final list, but I'm sure they'll agree that our city has the best burgers in the entire world.

One of Los Angeles's most-lauded burgers is also one of its most controversial. The trademarked "Office Burger" at sleek Santa Monica-based pub Father's Office (it also has a Culver City location) is widely credited for helping launch the gourmet, chef-driven burger trend that exploded in LA and other cities in the late aughts. Let's just say there would be no rise and fall of Umami Burger without the Office Burger. First invented and served by Father's Office chef-owner Sang Yoon in the year 2000, the sandwich made waves not only for its unique flavor profile and undeniable deliciousness, but for its strict no-modifications policy, which barred ketchup from the restaurant entirely.

Despite growing up in Santa Monica during the Office Burger's heyday, I didn't know any of this when I randomly stepped into Father's Office last year and ordered its eponymous sandwich. I was highly skeptical of the $22 price tag, but a quick review scan convinced me to pull the trigger. Unfortunately for my inner cheapskate, it was well worth it.

More of a deluxe sandwich than a classic burger, the Office Burger is sort of a patty-based homage to French onion soup. Served on a French roll and positively dripping with caramelized onions, Gruyère, and blue cheese, the eight-ounce dry-aged chuck patty is also topped with bacon and arugula. The overall effect is mouthwatering, if slightly pretentious. It may be 25 years since the Office Burger changed the culinary landscape, but Father's Office proves that trends can become timeless.

At some point in the last 10 years, smash burgers started taking over the world. These thin, crispy, melty cheeseburgers became the burger du jour, ousting thick patties from the zeitgeist and spawning a seemingly endless parade of new eateries to serve them. In Los Angeles, the competition between smash burgers is fierce. We have Goldburger, For The Win, Burgers Never Say Die, Heavy Handed, Burger She Wrote, and probably a whole host of other restaurants with deeply questionable names just waiting to be discovered.

For my money, though, none of them beat The Win-Dow. The Win-Dow serves classic onion-grilled smash burgers topped with American cheese, pickles, and its pink house sauce — an altogether satisfying package that should meet any smash burger aficionado's high standards. Plenty of The Win-Dow's contemporaries can say the same, however. What sets this local chain apart are its shockingly decent prices and cute, convenient atmosphere.

Though The Win-Dow started in Venice, I've only ever frequented its Silverlake location. Adorably tucked away on a tragically hip stretch of Sunset Boulevard, eating here makes me feel basic in a way I can accept. A single cheeseburger will run you less than $5 (before tax and tip, naturally), and your more health-conscious friends can pick up a grain bowl or shaved kale salad for around $8, items that could easily go for $20 at any of Silverlake's other trendy spots. If you ever find yourself day drinking at 4100 Bar, this is where you should stumble for a cheap, delicious lunch.

Unlike other entries on this list, there's nothing particularly trendy about the burger at Hinano Cafe. This classic Venice Beach dive bar — a local beach bum institution since 1962 — slings simple, charbroiled burgers on sesame buns with all the classic fixins. For less than $10, Hinano dishes out these bad boys in paper serving trays with a complementary side of bagged chips. Eating one tastes like attending a backyard barbecue where the best cook in your family is manning the grill.

It might not be for everyone all the time — some critics lambast the quality of the meat or the fact that technically, you could probably eat something similar sitting around a campfire — but frequently enough, that's exactly what I'm craving. I dare anyone to try to take a group of friends to the beach, and after spending the day soaking up the sun, end the trip with a few cold beers and classic cheeseburgers at Hinano without saying, "This is what it's all about." It's impossible. You can't do it.

More than anything, HiHo is known for the quality of its meat. The chain heavily promotes the fact that it only uses 100% grass-fed wagyu beef in its patties, which makes its low price tag all the more impressive. For $10.45, customers can get a HiHo Double with two mustard-grilled wagyu patties, cheese, onions, lettuce, pickles and onions. The restaurant offers a few other choices as well, including the option to add pastrami to your sandwich and take it up a notch. HiHo's burgers fall somewhere in between the smash burger and the thick burger — its patties, though high-quality, are thin, but piled high with traditional burger toppings.

HiHo is beloved by locals and tourists alike; in fact, Chowhound already named it the best burger in California. Personally, I've only visited the Santa Monica location, but the chain also has outposts in Marina Del Rey, Mid-Wilshire, and Studio City. What really makes it stand out are its fries and milkshakes. Sure, this is technically a burger-centric list, but nobody said sides were off the table. A friend recently told me that her vote for "best burger" was between HiHo and another chain, and it was HiHo's downright incredible French fries that put it over the top. Personally, HiHo has never let me down when I'm in the right neighborhood, craving a burger and fries.

Sorry, but I simply can't write a list of my favorite burgers in Los Angeles without including In-N-Out. It might be one of the biggest chains in the region with plenty of outposts outside of LA, but it also started here in the San Gabriel Valley, and most importantly, I crave it the second I enter city limits. In my humble opinion, In-N-Out burgers are a quintessential symbol of Los Angeles. This is the burger that locals grew up eating after sports practices, the burger we get when we touch down in LAX, and the burger we insist all of our East Coast friends try when they visit us.

In-N-Out can be controversial in its own right. People will tell you that it's massively overrated, or swear up and down that its fries are the worst in the fast food game. They're wrong. Not only do I love In-N-Out fries (give 'em to me extra mushy, no fry-ordering hacks for me!), I don't think that Californians are appreciative enough of the gem that we have in In-N-Out. The other day, I went to In-N-Out and got a Double Double, fries, and a Diet Coke for less than $12 — a deal so good that no one even comes close to matching it, especially at that level of quality, in a city known for outrageously expensive food. As much as I enjoy every other burger on this list, In-N-Out is the one I'm actually eating on a regular basis, long lines and all.