DMK Burger Bar

Truffle parmesan fries, blue cheese/onion straw burger, olive tapenade/tzaziki lamb burger. Heaven? Close enough (well to me at least). These delectable items can be found at one of Chicago's new burger joints - DMK Burger Bar.

What started as the love child between David Morton and Michael Kornick (DMK - get it?) has turned into Lakeview's premiere gastropub/burger joint. Boasting 14 different burgers (eight meat and six "others"), this place has been on my radar for quite some time. The timing was perfect when my dad was recently in town and we wanted to check out someplace to new eat. Normally I have an ongoing list of places where we should go, but this time around I got a little busy and didn't plan. We started walking around my neighborhood when I remembered - DMK...

As luck we have it we were about a block away when the idea stuck me and so we went. Always hungry and ready for a good meal, we dove right into the menu and started with the caesar and wedge salads. The presentation of these were great; the caesar had fresh anchovies strewn across the top of the crisp romaine (pictured) and the wedge, large crumbles of blue. If I know I am going to be indulging in something as decadent as a burger, I like to get a salad to start in hopes of filling up my tummy a little bit before diving into the deep end of meat and cheese. These salads did their best to curve my hunger - I didn't even finish mine! Had we known the sheer mass of both salads we could have easily gone with one.

On to the next round: burgers. DMK Burgers offers only grass fed beef, which is great because cattle are suppose to eat grass. Seems simple enough yet a lot of grocery stores, restaurants (even high end ones) still use corn fed beef. Cows are designed to eat grass - not corn. Got it? Good. I could go on forever about my position on industrial farming, but thats for a separate post. ANYWAYS, burgers. We ordered:

1) The roasted hatch green chile, fried farm egg, sonoma jack, fresh bacon turkey burger (also known as #4)
2) Sheep's milk feta, olive tapenade, greek salad, tzaziki grass feed lamb burger (aka #11)
3) Chili rubbed onion strings, blue cheese, spicy chipotle burger (aka #2)

Coupled with our three orders of fries, sweet potato with lemon tabasco aioli, parmesan truffle cream, and amish blue and smoked bacon, this meal was a total knock out. The first burger was a great mixture of salt, sweet and spice from the bacon, egg and chiles. The lamb burger actually felt very light; the cucumbers from the greek salad and the brininess of the olive tapenade was a great background for the lamb. Then there was the onion strings/blue cheese burger. My burger. I have to be honest I normally don't go for the blue cheese burgers because I often feel that the cheese overwhelms the flavor of the beef, however this burger balanced all the flavors very well. The spice from the ketchup and the chili in the onion strings played right into the tang and pungent flavors of the blue cheese. All three burgers were dynamite and packed with great flavors - cooked perfectly too!

Not only was the food great, but the bar offers a unique selection of beers and homemade sodas. Being that it was a Monday I got the blood orange soda and I couldn't have been happier. Refreshing, sweet and unique this soda definitely hit the spot for me. I can definitely see craft sodas becoming a trend in the culinary world. When I go back (and I will go back) I want to try the Allagash, white wheat ale. Several people were drinking it and it looked mighty tasty.

For about $8 a burger, $2-$5 for fries and $5-$14 for beer you can get a gourmet burger in a great atmosphere. I am just looking for someone who wants to indulge with me again!

DMK Burger Bar
2954 N. Sheffield
Chicago, IL 60657