There’s a little cardboard box with a face made out of stickers on it at the top of a slide. A man with tattooed arms, a cap and a voice like a benevolent army commander yells “order up”. The box slides down. It’s picked up by an excited-looking fellow and opened to reveal a burger stuffed with poutine.

It’s the first burger made at the new venue. The burger shop is the takeout spinoff of James and Sarah Robbins’ cult burger palace, Bar Luca. “It was kind of our dream to open our own takeaway. It's all sinking in now,” says James. The poutine burger is the notorious Blame Canada, a monstrous stack of Wagyu beef, maple-glazed bacon, poutine, maple aioli and a double serving of American cheese. It’s the same burger that last year was voted the best in town by Sydney’s most zealous burger fans:The Fatties Burger Appreciation Society.

The new venue serves the same burgers as Bar Luca, including the weekly special. Until tomorrow it’s the Rye Hard: a Wagyu patty with Swiss cheese, pastrami, pickles and a “rye” aioli made with seeded mustard, caraway and a rye-whiskey-infused mayo. The rest of the menu is made up ofoutrageous burgeradd-ons (fried-cheese patty; fried chicken; five types of aioli), chips and soft drinks. Once they settle in, the duo-Robbins and their head chef Allan “bobo” Boque will mix things up. “We will be able to put a few more specials on here. We've got a bit more flexibility because it's just burgers,” says Sarah.

It’s hard to imagine how it’s going to work when it will, predictably, get busy, because there’s not that many places to sit or even to wait. It’s an alley-wide space with a bench on either wall (made of reclaimed timber from Single Origin), a burger slide and a mural from ex-Mambo head designer, Brent Smith. The BL Burger trio is aware of this. “On the till, there’s a button that says ‘fill the grill’,” says Boque. It’s a big red emergency button that, when pressed, sends the message to fill every spare space on the grill with a burger patty.

BL Burgers
1/151 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst
(02) 9357 4527

Hours:
Tue & Wed 12pm–10pm
Thu 12pm–11pm
Fri & Sat 12pm–1am
Sun 12pm–9pm

facebook.com/blburgers