Is the burger over? Have bizarre fillings and high-brow re-imagining gone too far?

Top chefs are fed up with burgers - have we all become too obsessed?

The humble burger is no longer even remotely humble. It’s become rather arrogant really, what with all the mac and cheese patty toppings, glazed poppy seed brioche buns and dry-aged, hand-reared, grass-fed beef patties dripping with truffle sauce.

Thanks to the quest for Instagram likes, it’s not unusual for a burger to be stacked so high with so many toppings that you can’t even get your mouth round it, thus requiring dismantling and the use of a knife and fork, which defeats the whole point of a burger in the first place.

But has this all gone too far? Could our beloved burgers be - gasp - over?

For the past few years, food experts have been proclaiming that we’ve reached “peak burger,” and yet the burgers have kept coming, becoming ever more outlandish and appearing with increasing prominence on Instagram.

When accompanied by a mountain of chips and a milkshake, many of us are guzzling down our recommended calorie allowance in one meal, in stark contrast to the equally popular “clean eating” movement.

But as food trucks, fast burger chains and casual restaurants battle it out, high-end dining establishments are moving away from the burger.

A few days ago, top chef April Bloomfield, who’s famous for burgers, spoke out to say she would not be serving them at her new restaurant, Hearth & Hound.

“I’ve gotten burgers out of my system,” Bloomfield said.

And swiftly following her declaration, the top chefs behind the legendary Minetta Tavern burger, Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr revealed they’re so over making a fuss about burgers.

“There was a time where the burger was kind of this sidekick, and we kind of want to put it back there,” says Hanson.

The pair think we’re all too obsessed with burgers: “Let’s get them obsessed about veal knuckles,” says Nasr.

In recent years, the food scene has expanded to place more prominence on hot dogs and pulled meat buns, and the whole concept of the gourmet burger seems a bit overdone, with even McDonald’s getting in on the scene with their new “Signature Collection.”

Recent figures show that supermarket sales of burgers have dropped by a quarter, and according to Mintel, 28 per cent of Brits have cut down their meat consumption over the past six months.

Whether this translates to restaurant sales remains to be seen, as many so-called flexitarians don’t eat meat at home but still enjoy a juicy cheeseburger when eating out.

Could the burger really be over? Probably not, but it’s hard to imagine how much further burgers can go.