Warning: the following should not be read on an empty stomach. It’s hard to believe there was once a time in my life when I didn’t eat burgers. A sad and dark time, truly. But luckily, at some point I had a life-changing epiphany and realised that burgers are amazing.
Even more luckily, Düsseldorf has some cracking burger bars – some of the best I’ve been to in fact – and I’ve gone to the trouble of sampling the best on offer in order to bring you a list of the city’s finest.
Space Burger
Neustrasse 41, Altstadt
Space Burger was actually the first restaurant I went to in Dusseldorf, back before I moved here. If I’m being totally honest, the restaurant itself is nothing special: the décor isn’t that interesting and the service can be very slow, but the food? The food is excellent.
Now chicken burgers are lamentably rare in Dusseldorf but Space Burger is home to my ultimate favourite: El Morte de Pollo. It has salsa. It has avocado. It has guacamole. In short: it has far too many amazing things for it to be anything but incredible. Not only that, the tortilla chips give it an excellent crunchy texture.
Top choice: El Morte de Pollo
Ingredients: crispy chicken, tortilla chips, avocado, homemade guacamole, sweetcorn, cheese, lettuce, tomato, salsa, burger dressing.
Price: €9
Top tip: make sure to grab the menu in German, if only for its psychedelic novelty factor.
Beef Brothers
Kay-und-Lore-Lorenz-Platz, Altstadt
Also in the Altsadt (old town), you’ll find the Cologne-based chain Beef Brothers. The location really is the top-selling point: it’s right in the heart of things, meaning you get a great atmosphere if it’s warm enough to eat outside and a great view from the seating on the top floor if it’s not.
The burgers are great too: nothing too out of the ordinary, just good burgers done well. A great start (or end) to your night out.
Top choice: Ol’ Dirty Bastard
Ingredients: tomatoes, onion, bacon, dill cream, blue cheese and Tyrell’s potato chips
Price: €8
What’s Beef?
Immermannstrasse 24, Centre
I’ll be totally honest: What’s Beef? really isn’t my favourite place – not by a long way. But it does arguably have a certain appeal and remains one of Dusseldorf’s more popular restaurants. Its interior is painfully cool (though also awkward and uncomfortable) and the food is good quality (though you any extras like cheese or bacon will cost you). Still, the end result is very tasty.
What’s Beef does get extra points for its connections, though: it is owned by the same people as Toykio, a very cool café-cum-bar two doors down, where you can get a 10% discount if you show your What’s Beef receipt.
Top choice: The ABC
Ingredients: basically just the standard hamburger, with avocado, bacon and cheese added.
Price: €9
Top tip: sweet potato fries – need I say more?
Grindhouse
Bankstrasse 83, Derendorf
The new kid on the block, Grindhouse only opened just before Christmas, but seems to have gained a popular following very rapidly (expect a wait for a table on a Friday night). The restaurant is nice and intimate if a little bit charmless, but the food is really good, with a good choice of burgers.
The Chévre burger will quite literally change your life – goats’ cheese and cranberries should be on every burger.
Top choice: The Chévre
Ingredients: tomato, baby spinach, cranberries, goat’s cheese, Grindhouse mayo.
Price: €7.90
Stier Royal
Zimmerstrasse 28, Bilk
It took me a little longer to get over to Stier Royal, but I was pleasantly surprised. Found in my favourite neighbourhood in Dusseldorf, Stier Royal is a cosy little place with a great atmosphere tucked away on a quiet side street. The menu has plenty of options available, with a range of grilled foods as well as burgers. Food is cooked on full display for that authentic feeling.
One big draw of Stier Royal is the “Burger of the Week”, which – yes, you guessed it – changes every week. It was Surf and Turf on my visit, but I opted for the “2 cheese” burger instead.
Top tip: order the sauce platter with your chips – for €2 you get a selection of five dipping sauces, which range from mango curry, wasabi and jalapeño.
Top choice: Burger of the Week
For more on expat life in Dusseldorf, click here.
BONUS BURGER: Goodman’s Burger Truck
Various – Cologne, Dusseldorf, Bonn
If you ever get chance, check out Goodman’s roaming burger truck. They have excellent burgers (with the best burger buns I know) with a range of added extras, including a beautiful goats’ cheese and mustard burger. They now come to my office every Thursday. So tempting.
Looks like I need to get back to Dusseldorf purely for burger munching. Love the idea of goats cheese and cranberries!
It’s a winning combination! I love the number of burger places here, it’s turned out to be a really nice surprise.
Currently, i do know 3hs burger and Butcg Becker only.
Check out Table4you for 20% bargain for Butch Becjer.
But we will try Spaceburger soon.
Thanks for the suggestions – not heard of them before so I will have to get them a go! Hope you enjoy Spaceburger.
You should add a warning “Don’t read this post after 9PM”! Damn, they all look so good, I should check out where I can eat burgers here in Bucharest. The best I’ve had was in Amsterdam and it was named after a drag queen, haha.
Ooh, do you remember where it was? Off to Amsterdam in a fortnight!
It was somewhere in the Red Light District, it was called Getto 😀
The warning still didn’t deter me from reading! I LOVE burgers and now I am salivating. Düsseldorf here I come 🙂
Haha, you’ll need to pace yourself if you want to try them all…!
I loooooove burgers with strange ingredients. Goat cheese and cranberries? Sign me up! I like guacamole, fried egg, beetroot, pineapple…. any kind of ‘beyond the basics’ combo is my kryptonite!
I am a huge fan of avocado on anything. Or goat’s cheese. Can you have two kryponites?
Oh man, you can have SO many. I am a walking testament to that (a slave to my urges, I guess lol)
Are there some good burger places in Moscow?
Good burgers – yes, and some are very decently priced. But they arent particularly creative – you get the general lettuce tomato cheese bacon and condiments offering. I like my burgers to get weird and funkyyyy!
Here is a complete? list of all burger restaurants in düsseldorf
https://de.foursquare.com/oburkert/list/d%C3%BCsseldorf–burger
Thanks for posting!