Lord's

The seven-ounce patty is thick, incredibly juicy, and finished with brown butter according to our notes from the visit. There is enough rendered fat here to make George Motz's grease-is-an-ingredient philosophy feel less like advice and more like a legal defense.

There is no separate sauce. What goes on top is house-made Welsh rarebit cheese, and it is outstanding. Salty, rich, deeply savory, and powerful enough to define the burger without erasing the beef underneath it.

The soft pretzel bun is top tier too. It adds sweetness and absorbs the grease without turning into a wet pile of bread. By the end, the bun is carrying a frankly irresponsible amount of beef juice, butter, and cheese, but it holds.

We are both massive onion fans, so this was not an anti-onion reaction. Raw onion makes complete sense here, and in the right quantity it cuts through the heaviness and makes the next bite easier to chase. But nearly everyone at the table started peeling some off, and once we reduced it the burger became dramatically better.

That is why we are so excited to revisit it. The flaw is highly correctable, and everything else was excellent.

Getting one at dinner is its own problem. Lord's keeps the burger off the printed dinner menu and usually sells through the nightly run quickly, so you have to arrive early and know to ask. The good news is that it is now listed at weekend brunch, so the secret is becoming slightly less annoying.

Do not skip the Proper English Chips. They were the best steak-cut fries we had ever eaten at the time. The curried lamb Scotch egg and the sausage roll were both very good too. Lord's is heavy across the board. Plan accordingly.

But we loved the burger, onion surgery and all.

Lord's separates itself through the quality of its patty, rarebit cheese, and pretzel bun. The reviewed burger came close to a stronger assessment and stopped short on one highly correctable flaw.

That is why it remains one of the burgers both brothers are most interested in revisiting.