Review: Flip Burger Boutique
January 19th, 2009 by Besha Rodell in Restaurants, review
BUN IN THE OVEN: Shrimp burger with Nutella shake and fried rutabegas
At a time when restaurants are struggling, when many people’s dining budgets are severely curtailed, it’s quite a feat to be the guy who’s drawing a two-hour wait on a Monday night.
That guy is Richard Blais, molecular gastronomist, reality TV star, inventor of the foie gras milkshake, and now, purveyor of hamburgers so pedigreed they require a “boutique” to sell them.
Flip Burger Boutique is Blais’ first project since leaving Tom Catherall’s Home, where he stopped by for a while after almost winning Bravo’s “Top Chef.” There’s a vast difference between Home’s forced nature and boring Buckhead sensibility and Flip’s freewheeling nuttiness. Located on a congested strip of Howell Mill Road between tire shops and used car lots, Flip’s clean modern lines and playful aesthetic are apparent before you even turn into the parking lot. Once inside, it’s obvious that fun is the objective. Design team ai3 has created a room that’s both modern and decadent, with huge white cushioned booths, baroque picture frames holding mirrors and plasma screens, and colorful graphic walls that look like highly stylized graffiti.
The restaurant’s mission is contained in its catch phrase: “fine dining between two buns.” I’m not completely sold on that concept, in part because one of the main joys of fine dining is the ritual. A meal at Flip can take as few as 20 minutes, and service is (thankfully) not particularly formal. But what they’re getting at is the idea that a burger can be as coddled, as respectfully sourced, and as fussed over as any other dish.
The case for the outrageously upscale burger has been made before, most famously with the DB burger in New York, where a few years back Daniel Boulud (one of Blais’ mentors) unveiled his $28 foie gras and truffle studded burger at DB Bistro Moderne. Blais had a similar (and similarly priced) burger at Flip in the first few days of business, but it was removed from the menu before I had a chance to try it.
Much has changed on the menu in the first weeks of service. Gone are the steak tartar burger and the codfish burger. The menu’s stars are emerging and its duds being cast aside. Blais is showing that he understands the difference between something that’s conceptually awesome and something that has to go out quickly and feed 800 hungry people every day.
So what are the stars of this menu? The pâté melt, a cute take on a classic European pâté plate, pairs veal and pork pâté with swiss cheese, mustard and puckery cornichons. The po boyger, inspired by the shrimp po boy, has a patty so redolent of fresh shrimp it’s astounding and comes with fried lemons (one of the best uses of a lemon or a fryer). The lamburger tastes pleasingly lamby when it’s cooked right, and the raisin ketchup provides just the right amount of sweetness, cooled by cucumber yogurt. This is one burger that the kitchen often overcooks though, and when it does the dry results steal much of the dish’s appeal.
The butcher cut, which encompasses blue cheese and red wine jam on a beef burger, is tasty, as is the Southern burger, if you like a heart attack on a plate; the meat is fried and topped with pimento cheese. Many of the beef burgers lack the pizazz of their counterparts, but are entertaining nontheless. I wasn’t thrilled by the Philly burger, but I did appreciate the twisted Blais-ian genius in the house-made cheese wiz, which tastes appropriately fake and is ethereally airy. The same is true elsewhere on the menu — while I wasn’t able to fathom the chunky, overwhelmingly sweet Krispy Kreme milkshake, I was surprised at how much I loved the sometimes-available foie gras milkshake. The mellow fatty flavor deserves to be ice cream’s friend, and is far more harmonious than you might expect.
Many times the best dish on the menu is the vegetable of the day. The most memorable thing I’ve eaten at Flip was a special of buttered turnips, perfectly cooked and a refreshing palate cleanser to all that grease. Tempura rutabaga has gotten better in recent weeks, the soft/crunchy dichotomy becoming more pronounced, the crispy exterior more golden. And the fries, made fresh, are medium-weight and addictive, especially when dipped in the smoky mayo.
The one drawback to all this is that while most first bites are exciting and interesting, by the end of these burgers the thrill is gone. I’ve heard people complain that the burgers are too expensive and too small — I couldn’t disagree more. For the quality, the price ($7-$11) is fair, and I found one burger to be exactly the right amount of food. But they could shrink even more — I’d rather have two bites of these creations and move on than eat a whole one of any of them.
Blais says he isn’t planning to rest on his burger laurels, and he has more projects in the works. While he’s been present at the restaurant most of the times I’ve visited, chef Mark Nanna is obviously running the kitchen day to day. Blais won’t specify his exact plans for Flip in terms of expanding to other locations in Atlanta or other cities, but if the place’s early popularity continues, it would be foolhardy to miss the opportunity. And the name provides enough fodder for an empire of great puns. (My favorite idea so far came from my husband, who proposed opening a gourmet chicken nugget spot next door called The Bird).
All puns aside, it’s good to know that there’s more from Blais down the road than endless riffs on one kind of dish. But Flip deserves its own share of the limelight. Do I still long for the type of ultra-creative, unrestricted cooking Blais has delivered in the past? Yes. Does that make Flip any less fun? No. Flip invites us to revert to childhood, where we can all stop taking ourselves so seriously and find that tear-open-the-wrapper kind of enthusiasm we may have lost along the way to adulthood. There’s still a lot of joy to be found in a burger and milkshake.
Flip Burger Boutique 3 stars
1587 Howell Mill Road. 404-352-3547. www.flipburgerboutique.com. Lunch: Mon.-Thurs., 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Dinner: Mon.-Thurs., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Full bar. Lot parking.
(Photo by James Camp)
January 19th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Service was terribly slow when we went there, and it shouldn’t have been. We arrived at around 2:40 or so, after the main lunch crowd and before the dinner crowd; we had no wait, we were seated immediately, but it really did take forever to get our food out, and we told our server that we needed to go because we were on the clock. I was completely finished with my Nutella milkshake and *still* waiting before my bun mi burger arrived, and I didn’t drink it quickly.
I’ll try it again in the future, with the hope that they will have worked out the kinks by then.
January 19th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I had the same problem with the service when I went. I got a milkshake, tots, burger that came out in that order with 15-20 minutes between each…why would the side come out by it’s self??? Maybe things have gotten better.
January 19th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Unfortunately, their inability to put out a consistent experience has not changed. That said, they have a new high-end burger on the menu. Titled the A5, the main component is Japanese kobe beef. Unfortunately, these guys just can’t learn how to cook it properly. For the first time, I requested the temp for my burger (medium rare). It came out way over done.
Just like you said, the first bite was impressive. By the end, I was ho-hum over it.
January 19th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
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January 19th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
My wife and I absolutely love the Krispy Kreme milkshake!! The sweetness has always been fine for us (I mean, it is a Krispy Kreme milkshake – what are you expecting?) and the chunks of doughnut are necessary! It’s like an extra treat at the end!
The times that we have gone, the service has been excellent (although I think it feels a bit rushed at times…the place is kind of small, so I’m sure turnover is a high priority).
January 19th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I went last Thursday evening and the place was PACKED. Waited 45 minutes to get a table and then after placing our order, waited a LONG time for our food. The appetizers, burgers and sides all came out at the same time, while the table next to us had proper, staggered servings. Seems they are having trouble with timing.
I agree with the other posts that the initial bites are wonderful, but the joy fades fast. I had the FLIP Burger and the Butcher Cut. The FLIP Burger was a big letdown, but the Butcher Cut was easily one of the best burgers I’ve ever eaten.
The Krispy Kreme milkshake is pure genius and a “must get” item. The fries are also excellent.
I’ll be going back – hopefully the wait and service are much improved on my next visit.
January 20th, 2009 at 9:54 am
I don’t enjoy crowds, and I was really uncomfortable with the zoo I saw when I poked my head in at 2pm on Friday–naively thinking it was sufficiently after the lunch crowd to have quieted down. I left. I’ll try again, but by that time Blais will probably have gone yet somewhere else.
January 21st, 2009 at 12:59 am
I went here on Saturday. It was a mad house. I was quoted a wait of 1hr 45min but was seated after and 1 hr and 30 min only because my dinner companion made friends with the hostess. Apparently they were behind on their wait as well.
I received great service and I thought that I would have to wait a long time for my food to come out, but I was pleasantly surprised that the food came out quickly. I had the Butcher’s Cut and will agree that it was probably the best burger I’ve ever had. I don’t even like hamburgers but I thoroughly enjoyed Flip. The burger was smaller than what I was expecting, but I was full before even finishing it.
This was place was TINY for the amount of people packed into it. I’m sure once the new car smell wares off, it won’t be like that though.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:20 am
Made the mistake of going on a Friday night, quoted a 45-minute wait time – after an hour and 15 minutes there were still 15 parties ahead of us, so we left…
January 21st, 2009 at 1:31 pm
The kobe burger ($30) was available when I visited last week. Can’t say I was overly impressed.
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
well as a counter to some of the complaints above:
Went at 12:30 on a wed a couple weeks ago, the wait was 30 minutes. The milkshakes came out in 10 minutes and all the food came out all at once (maybe 20 minutes after ordering).
My cuban burger and rutabaga fries were excellent, the biggest disappointment was my fois gros milkshake. It had no real noticeable smokey/meatiness – more like a less sweet than usual vanilla milkshake without the vanilla.
January 24th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
The steak tartar burger is back on the menu. I was wrongly informed that it was gone for good…my apologies for the misunderstanding.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Busy Sat afternoon at around 1pm. 45 min wait. No worries. 15 min to get our fois gros milkshake. Don’t split the shake – I swear the two separate dont add up to be the original one. Mediocre taste and way too expensive. Johhny Rockets and Steak and Shake have better vanilla milkshakes. Sweet potatoe tators were terrible – fried with no sweet potatoe taste – again, overpriced. Onion rings were good – but hoped for bigger rings. Butter top hamburger bun was good. High grade hamburger blend of meats was great. Toppings were very good. Music inside was a bit to loud for my ears. Last word – I was hungry in 3 hours – burgers are on the small size – but they are good and reasonably priced when compared to other higher end eateries.
July 17th, 2009 at 2:15 am
We went on a Thursday around 6:30pm and had about a 10 minute wait. Our server was attentive enough where we cant complain. We ordered turkey burgers and sweet p. tots. Lets just say the turkey burger patty is about the size of a silver dollar pancake. Wait, that’s not the best part- peep this, you get eight (8) tater tots to go along with your silver dollar size turkey burger patty. When they brought the food out, I had this really silly feeling like I was being robbed somehow based on the serving size. It was one of those feeling like, what am I going to find to eat in the next 90 minutes because I know I’m going to be hungry again really quickly. The taste of the turkey burger was good however the tater tots were something I could have done without. By the time we left around 7:30pm, there were so many people in this place that it must have been a fire code violation.
July 17th, 2009 at 11:34 am
who the hell waits an hour and a half for a burger? is it that important to say u at a particular restaurant? surely your time is more valuable than that?