Café Salle Pleyel Hamburger

French Fridays with Dorie

“It has the taste of forbidden, the illicit – the subversive, even.”

This quote was from Hélène Samuel, Dories Greenspan’s bestie, and no, she was not describing my food writing style. She wasn’t even talking about the latest Paris nightclub, Karl Lagerfeld’s latest season, or some fancy, overly-frothy or obscenely-dense chocolate dessert. She was describing a… hamburger. The Café Salle Pleyel Hamburger to be exact.

Hyperbolic Hamburger

Yup! That is an awful lot of hyperbole for a mere burger but please consider the French tendency to exaggerate, so why not let them? I mean, just look at what they did when they got their hands on the recipe for “toast”. But, give a try to Chef Sonia Ezgulian’s burger recipe, created especially for Hélène’s oft-talked about Paris restaurant Cafe Salle Pleyel, and you will agree that this burger is all of that and more.

I will also say that this Hélène must be one smart cookie. She knows that to get your restaurant oft-spoken about it is a good idea to get Dorie Greenspan herself as your friend and fan. Dorie speaks often about the restaurant and burger in her blog and in her cookbooks. And lets face it, when my dear, dear friend Dorie speaks she knows exactly what she is talking about.

Don’t believe me? Here is all the evidence you need:

So you see Hélène and I have much in common. Both of us have been gushed over by Dorie!

Hélène’s restaurant is a tiny but trendy dining spot located out of common view on the second floor of the prestigious Salle Pleyel concert hall on Paris’ famed Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. To know about it you had to hear about it and this famed burger helped make it all happen for Hélène. Who wouldn’t tell a friend about this burger? Now that I am featuring it on the menu here at Sis. Boom. Blog. I am expecting popularity to Hélène .

While we are on the topic, am I the only one who thinks that all of Dorie’s friends are named “Hélène”? It seems that Dorie collects friends named Hélène like I collect burger recipes.

Just days ago we tried out a Bison Burger to die for (well, if you are a bison you definitely died for it!) Guests to my home routinely get served high volume turkey burgers, lamb burgers, sliders and even, well, hamburgers. If you want to make the burger experience even more illicit and subversive do what I do and serve it on your best china with a very expensive bottle of red or Champagne. It works. And it will work quite nicely with the Cafe Salle Pleyel Hamburger.

Café Salle Pleyel Hamburger

This particular burger has it all going on. In fact, it has a lot going on! The recipe calls for quite a bit of chopped add-ins to the meat patty — any two of them would be enough to elevate the burger to ‘special’ but here more is more and quite a sophisticated taste comes through. All accomplished without it one bit of its recognizability as hamburger.

I substituted some dried (but reconstituted) sun dried tomatoes for the jarred, oiled variety and suffered no negative effects. Those tomatoes sticking out of the patty darkened and caramelized putting off even more delicious flavor with each bite.

Read about the award here!