Little Louie’s Burger Joint & Soupery: Quintessential American Food

Little Louie’s Burger Joint & Soupery

234 Clyde Road, Cambridge

519-623-8500

www.lilyruth.com

Open Monday – Friday 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Lunch for two: $25

Amuse bouche: Everybody loves a super burger. Perhaps destined for inclusion among Waterloo Region’s top burger and fries, Little Louie’s Burger Joint & Soupery in Cambridge sits in a storied and quirky building and puts together no nonsense build-your-own-burgers.

I’m afraid Cambridge chef and resto-entrepreneur Steven Allen will rain blows down upon my head. His new venture, Little Louie’s Burger Joint & Soupery, has opened softly and quietly and has already been quite busy—perhaps more busy than Allen anticipated—and now with Echo Weekly’s appearance and this report that the burgers and fries are superb, he’s bound to get busier. Sorry Chef.

Well, restaurants must make hay when the sun shines. The small joint tucked amid residential homes on Clyde Road between Franklin Boulevard and Elgin Street North in Cambridge makes one mean hamburger and mighty fine fries. Or frites, as the order sheet calls them—however you want to label them, they are hot, crisp, potato-glory.

As for the venue and its name, there’s stories behind them that suited Allen and partner Rachelle Matlow perfectly. Having given up the lease on their Lily Ruth restaurant in Galt, the pair wanted a smaller venue with an existing kitchen out of which to continue to operate their blossoming catering business, Lily Ruth Catering.

What they found was a wonderfully quirky building that is possessed of the precise and exact character you’d want in a place that has to carry the improbable handle “Little Louie’s Burger Joint & Soupery.” But Allen has the cooking skills and business savvy to make the moniker stick.

“This used to be the place to go back in the 1970s for burgers and shakes and such, and it seemed great for what we wanted. It used to be called Henning’s and has been a plethora of places since,” according to Allen. “As for the name, my father was Big Louie, and I was always called Little Louie growing up.”

As for the burgers, that’s just about as easy to explain: they’re nearly perfect. But first, let’s dispel the notion that hamburgers are some sort of junk food. Done right, they are emphatically not. Good quality beef, not overburdened with additives and filler and cooked properly are delicious and healthy. And certainly, Little Louie’s are miles and miles away from QSR products.

A quintessential American food, we Canucks do burgers pretty darn well too. Little Louie’s is a prime example. Moist and tender inside, the burger meat has not been overworked by its hand-formation and beautiful clear juices slowly trickle down the meat with just the slightest, ever-so faint hue of pink toward the crisp browned exterior of the patty (God bless the Maillard Reaction). The thing is so moist, it really does dribble down your chin.

Then there’s a soft, fresh Challah-like egg bun with a hint of sweetness and enough body in its crumb to contain the juices. There’s no pallid or flabby bread here.

Accompanying are sautéed mushrooms adding earthy flavour and releasing their own heady juices. Gouda cheese adds a smoky note and tomato slices offer a slight acidity to enliven the mixture along with a few pickled banana peppers. I used no mustard or ketchup to keep things clean and simple. What I got was the best burger I’ve had in a very long time.

What’s cool is that it’s a “Build Your Own Burger” affair at Little Louie’s. You go to the counter and take a little clipboard and fill in five steps and your name. Your choices are dine in or take out, followed by 5-ounce or 8-ounce burger ($7.95 and $9.95, respectively), or double beef slider ($7.95). DiPietro’s around the corner on Glamis Road grinds the beef for them; Little Louie’s prepares the burgs with their own recipe.

There are chicken breast, turkey, and veggie burger choices too. The latter is nothing like cheap grocery store renditions and has a mild curry flavour with chickpeas, black beans, and quinoa, the South American grain.

Next, you pick four toppings—from a range of nearly two dozen cheeses, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon, pickles, fried egg, olives, and sprouts—and one sauce, which includes basil pesto, horseradish aioli, mango, smoky mesquite, among others.

Then you choose those terrific frites, onion strings, or Caesar or mixed green salad (the homemade carrot-mustard dressing seemed intriguing). You grab a beverage from the cooler and you’re eating a brilliant burger for a great price.

Homemade soups with in-house stocks are minimum three per day. Little Louie’s borscht soup has a wonderful colour and good chunks of beet and onion topped with a generous dollop of sour cream. It has a nice spicing to it, and comes from Allen’s background where I suspect some eastern European heritage lurks.

There’s a daily sandwich and in cool fall weather look forward to mac ‘n’ cheese and short ribs (I know I will). Check out the home-made pastry case as well for some solid tasting chocolate-walnut bars and pecan squares.

The quirkiness of the Little Louie’s building, the pylon sign, and the surrounding gravel parking lot reminds me of the many road-side burger joints you pass on your way up to cottage country. However, the drive to Cambridge for these top quality burgers and fries is a lot shorter. And the flavour is a vacation in itself.

Restaurant reviews are based on anonymous and unannounced visits to the establishments. Restaurants do not pay for any portion of the reviewer’s meal. Listen to “The Food Show” Sundays at noon on 570 All News Radio. Andrew Coppolino can be reached at andrew@andrewcoppolino.com.

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