The first 20 pages of Arthur Phillips' famous but divisive novel Prague is an ode to lounging at the Gerbeaud Café on tourist hub Vörösmarty Square, and considering the adjoining Gerbeaud Sörház offers a burger, I was hoping to neatly dovetail a memorable passage from the book about the offensively ugly office building on the west side of the square with a devastating review of Gerbeaud's Pub Burger. This was predicated on the Pub Burger being bad. But instead of delivering a blocky, sloppily constructed hungo-burger, Gerbeaud served up one of the most memorable burgers I have sampled in a long time, and a serious contender in the ongoing Budapest Burgerwar™.

The Pub Burger (Ft 2,600, or just over €10) comes with cheese and bacon and a large serving of tasty fries. Let's start with the bun, as Gerbeaud is famous for its pastries and baked goods. The burger bun is a perfect representation of their labors: a freshly-baked sesame seed roll that comes lightly-toasted. The sizable hamburger patty itself was no more than what you would expect from Hungarian ground beef, though unlike most places, they didn't over-salt or try to dolly the meat up with unnecessary spices. The real flavor came from the two thin strips of bacon that criss-cross the patty: American style bacon, not ham or Hungarian szallona. Fresh tomato slices, onion and lettuce round out the Pub Burger trimmings. Catsup comes at no extra cost, though you have to ask for it. Were it a thousand forints cheaper, the Pub Burger would no doubt out-class the competition, but at this price, anything less than superb would be disappointing.

Since publishing his book, the office building that offended Phillips' character so much has been torn down to be replaced by a curious, glass structure that looks like a huge inflatable raft (above). I am sure his characters would find something to hate in its brash modernity, but I doubt they would complain about the Gerbeaud Pub Burger; it is a taste of home dropped into the mostly old-world feel of Vörösmarty Square. Except maybe the price: with a wheat beer, Ft 990, and an automatic 15% tip, the bill came to Ft 4,128, or roughly what you pay for a nice paperback book these days.

How They Stack Up:

Meat: (8/10)
Bun: (10/10)
Trimmings: (9/10)
Service/Setting: (7/10)
Affordability: (5/10)
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Total Score: 7.8/10