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Father's office
Father's Office

A pub with locations in Santa Monica and Culver City

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The best gourmet burger ever

  • Mar 12, 2009
  • by
Rating:
+5
Father's Office is home to the greatest burger and a vast selection of beers and wines.  Originating in Santa Monica and with a second restaurant three times as big in Culver City, the "gastropub" is always crowded and buzzing with burger lovers and beer connoisseurs enjoying the delights from Owner and Head Chef Sang Yoon. 

Yoon came from a fine-dining background, but was a notorious culinary rebel, always rejecting perceived rules of cooking etiquette.  After receiving a cooking degree, he went to Spain and worked at various Tapa bars before returning hom eto  Los Angeles.   At the time, Father's Office on Montana Ave in Santa Monica was a small, local pub with no food.  Yoon saw an opportunity to transform the bar into a "gastropub," a bar that serves food, but with no waiters or reservations like in restaurants.  Yoon wanted to highlight beers, an underappreciated alcohol with considerable less prestigue than wine, even though its creation is more labor intensive.

When Father's Office opened under Yoon's direction, it became an instant hot spot as word traveled far and wide of it's glorious "Office Burger," the nation's first "gourmet" burger, priced at $12, that achieved huge public acclaim.  Yoon created his masterpiece by making an Excel sheet of every burger he ever had, from local restaurants to faroff ski resorts.  At the bottom of this list lay his favorite  ingredients that would go into the Office Burger.

The thick, juicy patty is composed of a combination of New York-aged and fresh-ground chuck, best cooked Medium to preserve its savory, fatty taste.  Ditching the old hamburger bun, a french baguette contains the patty and better absorb its juices.  For additional flavor, the burger is topped with caramelized onions cooked in bacon (to add a hickory, BBQ-like essense), argula and guyer cheese (similar to blue cheese).  The ensemble is gooey, messy, mouth-watering hamburger perfection.  In fact, Yoon won't let you subsitute any of the ingredients due to his argument:  "If I gave you crayons, could you better the Mona Lisa?"  Despite his stubborn elitism, upwards of 200 burgers are consumed each weekend night. 

My favorite compliment to the burger is a pungent Red ale to refresh the palete after eac,  fatty bite.  Father's Office also features over 60 different beers, from local microbreweres or foreign importers. 

If you're not in the mood for a burger and beer, FO features a strong wine selection and other entrees such as delicious cuts of duck and a caprese salad of tomatoes and buffalo mozarella.

On weekday nights, it's best to arrive before 7:00pm, and much earlier on weekends.  With no reservations, you'll have to have excellent table-hunting skills to figure out who might be on their out so you can sang their spot.  Be warned, sometimes people will continue ordering beers long after their meal, in part because FO has an excellent music selection chosen by Yoon, a music afficionado who even guest-hosted an hour on KCRW radio.

In other restaurants, you might notice pricey burgers containing blue cheese, arugula and caramelized onions, but the original Office Burger, though imitated elsewhere, is never equaled. 


Office Burger in all its glory

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March 13, 2009
I love a really good burger--no matter how much it is. Back in 2004, I used to work near this place called "MacArthur Park" that had their burgers for $ 12.95 which was soo worth it and I would treat myself once or twice a month. When I worked  in a different place now but every now and then I would still drop by up till they closed in SF. Oh, it was no longer $ 12.95....
March 30, 2009
This is definitely worth checking out, although it must be said that a common complaint leveraged against it is that it's not a "real" burger, as the ingredients are pretty high end. Although, it's comparably priced that the one you mention above.
 
March 13, 2009
rich! exactly. that was the word I was looking for at the time when I wrote the review, but it escaped me.
 
March 12, 2009
Great review. I'm in agreement that this is the best burger around. The biggest complaints that can be leveraged against this thing is that its ingredient mix is too rich and, as a gourmet burger, it's not a real burger. To both I'd suggest that this masterpiece is designed as a slow-eaten meal, ideally complemented by an equally slow-sipped beverage.
 
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About the reviewer
Eric Horwitz ()
Ranked #224
Ciao!     My world in a nutshell: Born in the humble beach town of Ventura, CA I went to UCLA with ambitions to pursue journalism and film. I studied literature and picked up Italian … more
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About this restaurant

Wiki

http://www.fathersoffice.com/

Father's Office Locations:

Santa Monica
1018 Montana Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90403
TEL: (310) 736-2224

Monday - Wednesday
BAR:    5PM - 1AM
KITCHEN:    5PM - 10PM
 
Thursday
BAR:    5PM - 1AM
KITCHEN:    5PM - 11PM
 
Friday
BAR:    4PM - 2AM
KITCHEN:    4PM - 11PM
 
Saturday
BAR:    12PM - 2AM
KITCHEN:    12PM - 11PM
 
Sunday
BAR:    12PM - 12AM
KITCHEN:    12PM - 10PM

Culver City
3229 Helms Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90034
TEL: (310) 736-2224

Monday-Thursday
BAR:    5 pm - 1 am
KITCHEN:    5 pm - 11 pm
 
Friday-Saturday
BAR:    12 pm - 2 am
KITCHEN:    12 pm - 12 am
 
Sunday
BAR:    12 pm - 12 am
KITCHEN:    12 pm - 10 pm
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