Ex-Lawry's The Prime Rib Head Chef Now Cooks At Korean Burger Joint In Wisma

Behind Burger+ is a cute love story. It's founded by engaged couple — Singaporean Daniel Koh (left), 35, who has a day job in finance, and South Korean native Lee Mihyun (right), 32, who spent over a decade as an R&D chef at Korean fast food chains like Lotteria. Burger+ was born from the duo’s common love for burgers, plus Mihyun’s Korean roots. Sparks flew when the pair met through a mutual friend at Daniel’s birthday bash three years ago — Mihyun was holidaying in Singapore at the time. Daniel subsequently travelled to South Korea to court Mihyun and the rest is history.

Located on the first floor of Wisma Atria, Burger+ occupies a prime spot facing the mall’s atrium. It was bustling on a Friday night less than two weeks post-opening. Although the 77-seater joint’s funky black and pink palette seems to be targeted at youngsters, the crowd was a mixed bag of families, students, and OLs hunkering down for a meal after work. On the evening we visited, Mihyun was overseeing orders at the counter while Daniel was stationed in the kitchen near the collection point, keeping an eye on the dishes being sent out. As Burger+ is still in its infancy, the couple plans to oversee the joint’s operations until business stabilises.

Combining red banquette seats, cushy tub chairs and faux marble table tops with predominantly black, pink and gold interiors, Burger+ is part American diner, part cool hangout with strong K-pop influences. In fact, the cutesy neon-lit symbols flanking one side of the eatery and the restaurant’s black and hot pink logo bring to mind popular K-pop girl group Blackpink. The joint’s playlist is a mix of chart-topping K-pop ditties (yes, BTS was on a loop) and K-drama OSTs. Great if you’re into K-pop, a bit mind-numbing if you’re not. It probably wasn’t intentional, but the Descendants of the Sun soundtrack was playing when we were there — just a couple of weeks after the show’s stars announced their split. After orders are made at the counter, diners are given buzzers to self-collect drinks and desserts. The food is served to the tables. As the joint doesn’t offer full table service, there’s no service charge.

While the ambience can be polarising, the grub is a crowd pleaser. There are 11 burgers (seven of which house beef patties) and a hotdog on the menu, four varieties of Korean fried chicken, and a bunch of classic diner sides like Truffle Fries. For drinks, there are craft beers, wines and interesting milk shakes like an Avocado Honey. There’s also vanilla soft serve ice cream with various toppings.

Each beef burger here comprises a patty crafted with a mix of USDA Prime and Choice beef, fluffy potato flour buns sourced from a local bakery, and gooey American cheese. Although the Burger+ team was reticent about the exact beef blend used, it revealed that there are four cuts in the blend, one of which is short rib. The beef is ground, rolled into a ball and then smashed on the griddle where it’s cooked to medium-well.

The eatery’s beef expertise is no surprise, considering that the kitchen is helmed by chef Nick Lee, who used to be the executive chef at upmarket American roast beef specialist, Lawry's The Prime Rib Singapore, for almost 20 years. We only discovered this juicy nugget after a bit of sleuthing on LinkedIn. Together with Mihyun, he will permanently head Burger+’s kitchen. We didn’t manage to speak to Nick about his latest appointment because the bosses of Burger+ are coy about revealing the fact that he used to be from Lawry’s. Go figure. Daniel and Mihyun have plans for expansion later this year, but will only reveal details of their next outlet in September.

The meat-to-fat ratio of the patty is pretty spot-on, resulting in beef that is tender to the bite with thankfully, no gristle. However, to us, when a standalone burger joint ventures beyond the fast food realm, offering better beef in burgers priced well above $10 each, then the patties should be cooked to a pinkish medium. In the States, for instance, standalone burger specialist restaurants almost always cook their patties to medium, because they offer higher quality meat that is stored and cooked using consistently safe methods (as opposed to chain eateries that hire part-time cooks). Pity here, they’re fried to a medium-well. While the beef is still fairly moist — it would’ve fared even better with a deeper, more flavourful sear and rarer insides instead of its uniformly cooked light brown.

Anyhow, this towering number threatens to topple over with thick slices of avocado, bacon, onions, tomato, cheddar cheese and beef slathered in B+ sauce (a "secret" Korean-tinged concoction that tastes like a sweeter, less acidic creamy barbecue sauce). It’s all quite tasty, especially paired with the impressively moist, pillowy buns. It’s just that we could barely fit this behemoth into our mouth, and the bacon could be crisper.

The obligatory truffle burger. This has sautéed button mushrooms, shavings of what we’re told are “fresh Italian black truffles”, truffle oil, truffle mayonnaise and truffle puree. While the beef patty pairs quite well with what seems like truffle oil (the shavings themselves taste rather muted, as mid to lower-end fresh truffles tend to), it got a bit too rich after a few bites. On its own, the patty here has an agreeably tender mouthfeel, but its rather mild beefy notes could be more intense. Just as well that many of the burgers here come loaded with everything but the kitchen sink.

If you’re a burger purist, this may not be your cup of tea. But as fans of Korean food, we appreciated the sweet-savoury bulgogi spin on this number (though our makan kaki wasn’t a fan). Inspired by the grilled beef dish marinated in soy sauce, sugar and Korean pear juice, the sweet bulgogi glaze and mayonnaise marries surprisingly well with the beef patty and buttered potato bun.

Whaddaya know — we really liked this burger. A massive hunk of battered dory is barely held together by the buns, and slathered with lemon tartar sauce and sliced avocado (the folks here do love the fruit). First, your teeth hits the silky bread, then the refreshing veg and creamy avo and finally, crisp, airy batter wrapped around succulent, creamy fish. Each bite is interspersed with the rich and tangy sauces. Sinful, but delish.

Fans of the popular Samyang’s insanely spicy Korean Fire Noodles may like this, but it's just too fiery for our, ahem, delicate palates. The meat could have been better marinated and the batter less thick, too. That being said, we're impressed that the crust remained crunchy under all that sticky, spicy-sweet sauce even after it sat on our table for a while.

When the number seven is translated to Korean, it’s a homophone for ‘cheers’ in the same language. So this beer is christened 777 (cheers, cheers, cheers). It's a refreshing, slightly bitter lager with hints of lychee that's crafted by the award-winning brew master of CraftMan Trading and Consultancy (previously brew master of The Pump Room) for Burger+.

Loaded with truffle oil, truffle powder, shredded black truffle, truffle mayonnaise, cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese and English parsley, these moreish fries are like regular truffle fries on steroids. Quite tasty and complements a burger nicely.

This yummy blend of vanilla soft-serve ice cream and fresh avocadoes is voluptuously thick and smooth. We like that it’s not cloyingly sweet, plus it’s kissed with the pleasantly fresh, grassy notes of the avocado. However, this is super filling, so share a cup with a friend.

This vanilla soft-serve ice cream is a tad icy and sweet, but a dusting of nutty roasted soybean powder and dollops of earthy Korean red bean paste balanced things out somewhat. Still, we’d skip this and end the meal with the more satisfying avocado milk shake instead.

Fairly well executed American-style gourmet burgers with a faint Korean twist (a large part of the ‘Korean’ bit also comes via the eatery’s blaring K-pop soundtrack). Next time, we’ll order a plain old cheeseburger that isn’t buried in toppings so we can truly gauge the flavour of the beef here. Based on the fancier burgers we were served during our hosted meal, we find the patties fairly juicy but not the most flavourful we’ve had. That being said — they were overall still pretty enjoyable paired with the pillowy potato buns, punchy sauces and fresh toppings. We especially liked the crispy fish burger here. But we’d skip the middling fried Korean chicken.

Burger+ is at #01-37/38 Wisma Atria Shopping Centre, 435 Orchard Rd, S238877. Tel: 6694-1226. Open daily 10am to 10pm. Last orders 15 mins before closing. burgerplus.com.sg​​​​​​​

PHOTOS: Burger+ & Florence Fong