Best Burger: Comme Ça

There are a lot of things to admire about Comme Ça. The selection of ripe cheese is among the best in the city, and the braised beef shoulder is exemplary. I love the mussels steamed in cream and Pernod, the hand-chopped steak tartare and what at the moment may be the only serious coq au vin in Los Angeles. The cocktail maestro is one of the two or three best in town. The theatrically lit dining room manages to suggest a French brasserie without succumbing to French brasserie kitsch. This is why, I think, the proprietors would probably rather you didn’t know that Comme Ça also has the best cheeseburger in town — they would rather you became obsessive about the cheesy Parisian-style onion soup, the Alsatian tarte flambee, or the classic skate Grenobloise. But the lunchtime-only cheeseburger cannot be denied: a thick, dripping, loosely packed puck of bloody-rare beef, glazed with a good Cheddar, barely but adequately contained in a soft, shiny-crusted hamburger bun from Boule Bakery. The Mannerist school of cheeseburger construction has caught on lately, at Father’s Office, Hungry Cat, 8 Oz. Burger Bar, among many, many others, but this cheeseburger is from an older tradition where ingredients are allowed to speak for themselves, an unfussy burger that tastes like good aged meat. ``It’s basically my mother’s hamburger,” chef David says. ”It’s what I grew up eating in Ohio.”

8479 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. (323) 782-1178.

More Jonathan Gold Best Of:

Best Gelato: Bulgarini Gelato

Best Cheesesteak: Philly West Bar & Grill

Best Cobb Salad: The Polo Lounge

Best Cupcakes: Oinkster

Best Fried Chicken: Kyochon

Best Stinky Food: Jitlada