Klüg Burgers

Klüg Burgers sits on Carrer de Blanquerna in Palma, right on the pedestrian spine of the Bons Aires district — and it is the first of the two houses the owners opened in the city. Blanquerna is a neighbourhood street rather than a tourist run: fashion shops stand next to businesses that have been there for decades, and because no cars come through, a terrace spills out in front of almost every building. Klüg has one of its own. Behind the place are five friends from Argentina: the three Matías — Oberst, Bernatek and González — plus Mariana and Eliana Compte. They came to Mallorca with one clear idea, to build an American-style burger culture the island did not yet have. Klüg was the first address on Mallorca to commit fully to the smash technique, and in the early days it had to explain to guests what that even meant. They started as a group of five, without any big machinery. There is now a second house in Santa Catalina; the menu is the same in both, but the Blanquerna room is the original and the smaller of the two. What Klüg Burgers puts on the flat-top Smash means the meat is pressed flat against the hot surface instead of being cooked as a thick patty. The surface caramelises, and you get that crisp, raggedly uneven crust by which this kind of burger has to be judged. Klüg works with a blend of three different cuts of beef. The second signature is the bun. The owners were the first on the island to use potato rolls — potato-based buns, soft and yet sturdy enough to wrap around the filling rather than go soggy. Add to that American cheeses and house-made sauces. The burgers carry names, not numbers. La Vieja Confiable is the purist one, meat and melted cheddar and nothing else; La Beiconeta is the one for bacon devotees; then come Epicarda and Cabrona. Every month the kitchen designs an additional new burger and a new dessert, and under the heading Klüg del Chef guest cooks build creations of their own. Vegan, vegetarian and what comes alongside Vegan and vegetarian burgers have their own sections on the menu, alongside a crispy chicken range. Practically the whole menu can be switched to plant-based meat — including the Modo Diablo, the spicy one with red onion and pepper jam. Among the starters it is the camembert bites that get named most often, next to nachos, salads, chips loaded with cheese and bacon, and boniato — sweet potato, here with cheese and truffle mayonnaise. The desserts are made in-house. Beer yes, brewery no Klüg is occasionally filed as a brewery, and that is misleading: nothing is brewed here. What is true is that beer carries unusual weight for a burger joint. At the bar at the back of the room a whole row of taps juts out of the wall, with the kegs behind it. What gets poured is a broad selection of national, international and craft beers — every one of them brewed in someone else's brewhouse. The room on Blanquerna The room is small, and that is the single most useful practical note there is. High tables with bar stools stand along one side, lower ones at the other end; green plants trail down from a black ceiling. It fills up regularly, and guests without a booking do get turned away. The house takes reservations through its own online system, which keeps a separate form for the Blanquerna location. Outside there is the terrace facing the pedestrian zone, which with no car traffic is far pleasanter than a main artery of the district sounds. Takeaway and delivery are available too, and dogs are welcome.