Minnesota Monthly's intrepid food writer consumed thousands of calories, traveled hundreds of miles, and visited dozens of restaurants, drive-ins, and dive bars across the state. Why? To bring you this: The definitive, ultimate, be-all, end-all list of the greatest burgers in Minnesota.

It seemed a simple enough task: Which Minnesota burgers should you eat before you die? Granted, to the less food-obsessed, this might seem like a peculiar question, and to a health-care professional, perhaps even a suicidal one. But to me, the question seemed urgent. Critical. Life-defining, even.

Yes, I drove to Austin for a burger. I also went to Waconia, Waseca, Cloquet, and plenty of points in between. Because who could say where the best, the very best, the must-try-before-you-die burgers in Minnesota could be found? I had promised myself that this story wasn’t going to be a kindergarten award ceremony: Not everyone was going to get a gold star. If there wasn’t a burger in St. Paul that you would regret your whole life for having missed it, then so be it (there is). Past performance was not taken as a predictor of future behavior. And no one got a second chance. It was a sudden-death, one-shot challenge. If I experienced a once-great burger on a lackluster day, then that was it—it was out. No mulligans. No mercy.

Great burgers are quantifiable, knowable, definable, and inarguable (see Best Burger Methodology). And the following are all great burgers. These are the burgers you must try before you shuffle off this mortal coil. For the sheer joy of it—and because they will help you understand something new and important about what it truly means to be Minnesotan.

Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant
Inherent Awesomeness: 38

If there is one burger in Minnesota that could be called the Chef’s Chef’s burger, it would be the Cobb Salad burger at the Dakota. Jack Riebel is one of those chefs who every chef in town knows and respects, but he doesn’t get a lot of public recognition. He ran the lunch at the dearly departed Goodfellow’s for 10 years, and while there, he created a burger to honor his fellow chefs: The Cobb Salad burger. He would take the trim from various high-end cuts—strip loins, rib eyes, and such—blend those with chuck, and cook it. Then he would top the burger with Goodfellow’s famous pico de gallo tomato relish, a special guacamole created by one of his Latino line cooks, and an onion relish that he credits to Isaac Becker, who is now chef and co-owner at 112 Eatery. He added smoked bacon, hard-cooked egg, and—because it’s a burger—some buttermilk battered onion rings. It became the off-the-menu sensation that every chef in town was clamoring for. “When Tim McKee [of La Belle Vie] was opening Solera, he’d call ahead: ‘I’m bringing in eight cooks, we need eight Cobb burgers. Can you do that?’” Riebel told me. McKee made Riebel promise that if he ever opened his own place he’d put the Cobb burger on the menu. Since Riebel took over the kitchen at the Dakota three years ago, his Cobb burger has been on the menu. It’s magnificent: A sturdy, beefy, gorgeously charred patty is rested on a slab of grilled Pugliese bread and surrounded by everything mentioned above, as well as a chiffonade of thinly cut Bibb lettuce leaves. All the various relishes and toppings come together to make every bite lively, fresh, and vibrant, but they never obscure the basic campfire meatiness of the burger at the core. The Dakota serves a mean basket of fries, too. If you want to know how five-star chefs make burgers for other five-star chefs, look no further.

- Dara Moskowitz, Minnesota Monthly

Lunch at the Dakota

It was not a great year for restaurant lunches. While I had several every week, the only ones I felt joy in were from chef Jack Riebel's all-American, incredibly creative menu at the Dakota. I went on and on in print about Riebel's craveable Cobb burger—and I meant every word. This deconstructed burger with its well-charred but very tender patty of environmentally conscientious, humanely raised beef was decorated with the best parts of a Cobb salad: creamy avocado, rich bacon, perky blue cheese. A blood orange and watercress salad was as crisp and frothy as a meadow in flower; peekytoe crab cakes were a sweet ocean song.

- Dara Moskowitz, City Pages