What to Have for Lunch: S.F.'s Best Burger at Serpentine

John Birdsall

Prather Ranch hamburger ($11.50).

​Thurs., May 20, 2010

Trina E./Flickr

​For SF Weekly's Best of San Francisco 2010, food critic Jonathan Kauffman ate his way through enough burgers to make any normal diner sweat LDL crystals. His favorite? Serpentine chef Deepak Kaul's stripped-down, straight-up classic (no bacon, BBQ sauce, blue cheese chunks, caramelized onions, or other flavor-boosting gimmicks), which Kauffman cited for "obscene juiciness." Order one medium-rare and it's true ― observe the juice pool on the plate in the pic above. Kaul's achievement-on-a-bun honors the beef at its core, lets you taste the meat's mineral, blood-tinged complexity ― a burger for grown-ups.

Serpentine 2495 Third St. (at 22nd St.), 252-2000.