When the discussion turns to Western Australia’s top burgers, the same names regularly pop up. Short Order. Meet & Bun. RoyAl’s. One operator not so regularly name-checked, though, is a Busselton food truck called Burger Bones. But it should be.
Permanently based in the Shed Markets outside of Busselton, Burger Bones serves burgers good enough to take on Perth’s best.
Self-taught cook Cooper Deville started his kitchen career in a London burger bar before running his own hotdog street stall, Dogfather Diner, for eight years. Deville returned to his home town of Busselton in 2013 after 33 years away and built the Burger Bones food truck on his front lawn.
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SUBSCRIBE NOW“When you get a stall in London, you need to take one item and make it yours,” he says. “At that time, no one was doing hotdogs and it went surprisingly well. It gave me the experience and confidence that what I was cooking at home could be done on the street. Customers liked my little extra touches and attention to detail.”
The Burger Bones menu features classic and original combinations, with patties made from Amelia Park chuck steak and sauces made in-truck. The signature Dirty Burger is topped with maple-glazed bacon, American cheese, cherry barbeque and cheese sauces. Chilli lover? Go directly to the Habanero Smack Patty with Dr Paul’s habanero mustard and goat’s cheese. Off-menu creations such as the Cheese Bomb, filled with molten fontina, are available to those in the know.
Like so many other burger cooks, Deville believes in keeping things simple.
“The biggest thing is not making the patty like a bloody rissole,” he says. “Too many patties in Perth have things in them, like egg or onion. My philosophy is to pick your meat well and let it do the talking.”
Deville refuses to compromise on how many burgers he can cook at once and uses a grill the same size as the day he opened. Wait times can be up to an hour, but the burgers’ eating quality warrants the wait.
While Deville aspires to open a restaurant, he’s staying put for the foreseeable future, meaning diners still need to head south for their Burger Bones hit.
“I want to build something here first,” he says. “This is home, this is where I came back to.”
Burger Bones
The Shed Markets, Skiff Way, Vasse
Hours:
Thu, Sat & Sun 11am–3pm
Fri 11am–8pm
This article first appeared on Broadsheet on March 28, 2018. Menu items may have changed since publication.