To say burgers have been experiencing a renaissance in Melbourne and around Australia would be a gross understatement. The notion of a 'healthy' or 'gourmet' burger was ill found in the vernacular of the everyday Australian until self-proclaimed 'gourmet burger' franchise Grill'd rolled into hipster laneways and streets across the country.

To tell the truth, the proposition was simple. Hand-crafted burgers made with high quality ingredients and interesting flavour combinations that would stand head and shoulders above the heavily processed offerings from traditional fast-food outlets such as McDonalds, Hungry Jacks and KFC.

It turns out that paying $10+ for a single burger was completely fine with most Australians as long as they were incredibly delicious and so began the nation's unexpected burger revolution.

Now that there was big money involved, everyone wanted a hand in the pie with premium burger outlets across the country popping up such as the intrepid Mr. Burger, hipster abodes Huxtaburger and 8Bit, foreign invaders Carl's Jr, the omnipresent local fish and chip shop, Crown's inevitable attempt to cash in on the latest food trend with the Merrywell and Neil Perry's belief that his sacrosanct magic touch may win over everybody with the ambitiously named The Burger Project.

(Don't worry, eventually we will have reviewed all of the aforementioned attempts at burger glory)

For now, our burger adventures will commence with the original player in the gourmet burger game, Grill'd.


Degraves Street is quintessential Melbourne and the perfect place to try Grill'd's offerings. It has the perfect location for a disruptive outlet such as Grill'd embedded among the heart of Melbourne's cafe culture.

Upon entry, it feels like we are almost driven a menu into our face by a enthusiastic but a clearly robotic and annoyed attendant. Despite the imploring attendant asking us to try the Black Crumb Chicken Burger that looks like it just came out of a coal pit, we decided to stick with the more traditional options from the fairly extensive menu that incorporates a variety of chicken, beef, lamb and veggie patties on a number of different buns including a 'low-carb super bun' that looks more like a biscuit to us from a distance.

Sticking to the Simply Grill'd ($9.90) on a Panini bun and a snack-sized portion of the Grill'd Chips ($3.80), we knew a burger outlet's original burger is the real test of its strength.

Upon depositing our charity bottle cap to our jar of choice (the charity with the most caps at the end of each month gets $300 and the other two get $100 each. We sat down and the burgers arrived in decent time despite the waiter absolutely unapologetically butchering our names.


The burgers themselves were neither gigantic nor the minuscule portions generally associated with McDonalds cheeseburgers. As it should be, the patty was appropriately juicy and cooked well while the herbed mayo was a nice flavour kick alongside the crunch of the fresh salad. The bun too was soft yet crisp on the outside exactly like it should be. But was the burger on a whole revlatory? No (the chips too were standard fare in our minds-nothing too special). It was pretty good but nothing to brag about and that's where it seems Grill'd has nestled in amongst the other fast food offerings. A slightly up-market burger joint that is tasty and reliable.

What about the 'healthy burger' tagline? Of course the Simply Grill'd without the mega salty accoutrements such as bacon does fairly well coming it only 37% of the daily sodium intake with 858 mg and 28% of saturated fat at 6.8 g according to the nutritional information. However, it is important too remember that the serving of chips really can push it over with 352 mg of sodium at 15% of your daily intake. Of course, burgers should never be your daily go-to meal but they are definitely a delicious treat.

So are Grill'd burgers healthy? They might not be the answer to the THR1VE but it's your best bet to satisfy your burger craving (much better than Maccas any day of the week).