Is Toronto's smash burger craze dying out? These restaurants serve thick patties and people are obsessed

Smash burgers have been a go-to bite in Toronto for years, but some restaurants are taking a different approach.

Of course, you’ve always been able to find luxe, thick burgers served medium-rare at restaurants, but in recent years, the quick-service burger joint landscape has, by and large, been dominated by smash burgers.

Popularized by various south-of-the-border fast food chains like Shake Shack and the ubiquitously named Smashburger, the popularity of thin-pattied burgers has been on the rise across North America for decades — it was only a matter of time before they completely dominated Toronto.

Over the past decade, restaurants like Rudy, Rosie’s Burgers, Burger Drops, JABS, and Matty’s Patty’s — to name only a few — have dominated the scene, achieving massive success by serving the quick-cooking creations, and it’s not hard to understand why.

They’re easy to eat, they’ve got crispy edges, and they spare you from the occasional concern that bubbles up when eating pink beef from anywhere other than a fancy steakhouse — what’s not to love?

Still, even though smash burgers seem to be available on nearly every intersection of the city, some folks have been hungry for something different, something meatier. Lately, they’re getting their wish, as thick-pattied burgers increasingly rebound.

Patty pioneers

An early eatery to break the wafer-like mould was Little Italy’s Bear Steak Sandwiches, which permanently added a particularly robust burger to its rotation in the summer of 2024 — a time when a medium-rare burger chuck burger at a quick-service sandwich shop was rarely, if ever, seen.

“If you know Bear, you know we only do medium rare,” founders Ricardo Barrientos and Aki Erenberg told Dished Toronto. “When we began discussing adding a new sandwich to our menu, we had to stay on brand and offer something the city didn’t have enough of: thick, 8-oz medium rare patties.”

Growing up, they say, thick burgers were, really, the only burgers around Toronto, and, they say, “nothing beats a high-quality patty, especially one that’s fresh ground from a butcher with a chew and bite that a smash patty just can’t replicate.”

Still, they admit, Toronto loves a trend, which is how the city got to the level of smash burger saturation it’s at today, but Ricardo and Aki say, “Toronto is also not to be fooled.”

“Once there’s an oversaturation of a certain item, the city starts to crave something novel… The thick patty isn’t something that people are coming back around on in our opinion, it’s something that was always there that’s just starting to receive the appreciation it deserves again,” they told Dished Toronto. And they’re right.

New burgers on the block

Two of the biggest burger shop openings of the summer in Toronto just so happen to centre around thick, juicy patties that are a far cry from the — let’s face it — beef chips that have been dominating the scene.

Atomic Burger, the latest venture by the team behind the now-defunct Fattoush Sandwich Club, is just the latest in the charcoal-scented lineup of burger joints opting to put the press down and serve its burgers thick.

Not only that, but its ample 5-oz patties are dry-aged for 45 days before they hit the grill and, despite the extra meat and additional care required in the aging process, are still priced comparably to their smash burger-serving contemporaries.

A similar philosophy is going down at Rasa Burger, the fledgling burger-based spinoff of Harbord Village’s Rasa, which opened a stall at Chefs Hall in June. Right down to its tagline, “We don’t smash, we respect,” Rasa Burger is loudly and proudly serving thick, medium-rare patties.

At Rasa, their signature thick-pattied burger has been a best-seller for years, predating the smash burger fervour of today, so when The Food Dudes (Rasa’s parent company) decided to open a burger joint, doing their burgers the same way was a non-negotiable.

If you’re looking for even more places to pick up a burger that features a pleasantly plump patty, Manita, Paris Steak, Old York Tavern, and Susie’s Rise & Dine are just a few other spots in the city serving them up nice and thick.

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