Byron? Pah! Can you do posher than George?

Lining them up at Five Guys Burgers and Fries in New York (Alamy)

Our writers review their favourite burger joints...

Dirty Burger

Though the candidates on this week’s Apprentice got blasted for their “Deadly Dinners” branding, my local posh-burger emporium Dirty Burger seems to be experiencing no such problems.

Which is no surprise. Because whether you found Dirty Burger - essentially a tin shack in a car park round the back of Pizza East and Chicken Shop in London’s Kentish Town – when you got tired of queuing for either of those two front-of-house establishments, or whether you went there specifically, the one thing you’ll know is that there can be no finer way to eat beef in a bun. In fact, the only complaint I’ve ever heard about the place is that its burgers are too small. You want big, Wimpy still sells an Original Halfpounder, I gather. (Simmy Richman)

Five Guys

Quite likely you haven't heard of Five Guys. Probably you're not one of the 4mn people to have watched a customer live review his burger on Youtube. All the same, when it arrives in London's Covent Garden next month, the joint is sure to pick up some UK buzz. It was voted America's favourite burger spot in 2012, a title that comes with some competition. (And if you watch that live review in all it's lip-smacking glory, perhaps you'll get a taste of why).

MeatLiquour

A den of grease and study in foody hipsterism, MEATLiquor off Oxford Street makes you queue to enter a car park basement, stamps your hand as if it were a nightclub, and serves up burgers so dirty they’ll make you sweat. But damn they’re good. (Simon Usborne)

Greasewood Flats

The most explosive burger I ever had was the green chilli cheeseburger in Greasewood Flat, a Harley bikers’ bar in Scottsdale, Arizona, which turned my tongue almost black with Scoville units; the most disappointing one was my first-ever Big Mac in Dublin in 1977, the year McDonalds came to Ireland (why was it so flat – and WTF was going on with that gherkin?); the most inconsequential were the ones from Gourmet Burger Kitchen, swamped as they always were in horribly sweet relishes and salads; the Byron burger is a handsome, dependable but strangely tasteless triumph of the mincer’s art.

 And the best burger I ever had – nubbly textured, heftily flavoured, slightly scorched, umamily satisfying and with a top dressing of juicy beef to drip down your chin – was two years ago at MeatLiquor.

Let us know where you had your best burger in the comments below: