Four To Try: Smash Burger Diners and Pop-Ups To Add to Your List

Melburnians are spoilt for choice when it comes to burgers. You can find everything from old-school serves at Andrew’s Hamburgers and Slowpoke’s McDonald’s riff to top chefs’ takes at Hot Listed restaurants like Gimlet and Maison Batard. Earlier this month, two Melbourne burger shops, Charrd and Seoul Tiger 1988, were respectively ranked 13th and 37th on the World’s 101 Best Burgers list.

In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of the smash burger, made with thin patties that are crispy around the edge, but still juicy in the centre. These are four of our favourite smash burgers around town.

Macgregor’s Original, Abbotsford

Founded by powerlifting coach Macgregor McNair, entrepreneur Aaron Savrone and chef Laura Boulton, Macgregor’s Original is a burger spot with a simple brief: make great American-style burgers.

Here the menu is deliberately small with only three options – the signature cheese smash burger, an Oklahoma fried onion burger and the Macgregor junior cheeseburger – plus chips cooked in beef tallow. The beef mince comes from North Carlton Quality Meats. It’s then griddled and layered with a pairing of American and Swiss cheese, and set on a lightly toasted, buttered Martin’s Potato Roll.

Stepping into Macgregor’s Original feels a little like wandering into a New York bodega. The site, which was formerly the Magpie Milk Bar and Deli, sat vacant for a year before being used as a set for the upcoming Gerard Butler film Empire City. McNair says the production team designed it to resemble a Defonte’s-esque sandwich shop. The space has been left largely as it was for the film, with checkered tiles, wood-clad fridges and stainless-steel accents giving the small shop an American feel.

212 Nicholson Street, Abbotsford

macgregorsoriginal.com

Elmos, Fitzroy North

James El Moussalli, whose nickname is Elmo, started developing the concept for this St Georges Road burger shop in 2018, trialling it as a food truck before eventually opening a bricks and mortar shop in late 2024. The team prefers to call its burgers “hard pressed” rather than smashed, though they’re similarly crispy on the edges and juicy in the centre.

“Our philosophy is simple: do two perfect burgers rather than many average ones,” says El Moussalli. Those burgers are The House and The Classic. The House is a nod to beloved Californian chain In-N-Out Burger and comes with fresh lettuce, sliced tomato and fresh onion. The Classic is more stripped back, focusing on grilled onions. Both use patties made from organic, grass-fed beef from Hagen’s and are served with American dill pickles. They come on Martin’s Potato Rolls, which El Moussalli says are “soft and slightly sweet, hold up to a juicy patty without overpowering the beef, and toast well.”

Elmos also has the occasional special. Currently, it’s a Hatch chile burger, focused on New Mexico’s famous peppers. The team also has plans to open a second location in Fitzroy.

350 St Georges Road, Fitzroy North

elmosburgers.com.au
@elmosburgers

Tommy Two Buns, Fitzroy North

Tommy Two Buns from Ari Bedewi-Hayes operates out of the Fitzroy Bowls Club every Sunday. The hours change, but Bedewi-Hayes typically serves burgers from midday until late afternoon.

The menu is built around two core burgers. The Tommy pairs a charcoal-grilled beef patty with mayonnaise, American cheese, truffle black garlic mustard, ketchup, caramelised onions and pickles, while the Tommy Deluxe adds lettuce, tomato and fresh onion. There’s also a limited-run Reuben burger, which stacks Swiss cheese and pastrami on top of a 200-gram beef patty.

578 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy North

@tommytwobuns

Krispy’s

Husband and wife Kris Sucipto and Olivia Layanto started their smash burger pop-up Krispy’s four years ago. The weekend passion project, which they also run with their daughter, travels across the south-east, making frequent appearances at Mangolni Family Merchants in Braeside and South Beach Market in Mount Martha. But Krispy’s has also run pop-ups at places such as Gales Brewery in Brunswick East and Whitehart Bar in the CBD.

Sucipto says he started with a mission to correct the misconception that smash burgers are always dry. He’s mastered a technique for making burger patties that have crispy edges but are still thick in the middle. Krispy’s patties are made with a blend of beef rump, brisket and short rib from Nino’s and Joe’s Meats in Brunswick. They’re served as single, double or triple cheeseburgers with onions, a house sauce and Dillicious pickles, all on a Martin’s Potato Roll.

Check Instagram for the crew’s upcoming locations each weekend.

krispysburgers.square.site
@krispys.au

Additional reporting by Quincy Malesovas