PHOTOS: Zagreb Burger Festival 2020

By Marc Rowlands 2 September 2020

Resetka at Zagreb Burger Festival 2020 © Mateo Henec

September 2, 2020 - The most mouth-watering burgers and all the best vibes from today's opening of Zagreb Burger Festival 2020

The sun was out as Zagreb Burger Festival 2020 kicked off today in Strossmayer Park, in the heart of the Croatian capital. People lounged in deck chairs, sipped gin and tonic or beer while enjoying a relaxed musical soundtrack and carefree vibes.

Here we bring you the best photos of the day, plus details of some of the mouth-watering burgers on offer this year.

Rešetka

There is to be no judged competition this year. Instead, visitors can scan a code on the receipt they receive to vote for their favourite burger. Rešetka, last year's winners, have three contenders at Zagreb Burger Festival 2020; E, Buraz, a beef patty served with chicken liver pâté, smoked garlic cream and cucumber relish, Đurina Frende, a dry-aged tenderloin beefsteak patty, served with rocket pesto and a brown butter mayonnaise, Divji Đuro, a mixed beef, and wild deer meat burger, served with a leek and sour cream spread and a ragu of forest mushrooms. E, Buraz and Divji Đuro were the best two burgers we tried all day (we tried a lot)!

The Garden Kitchen and their wonderful Veggie Deluxe

The Garden Kitchen has four burgers; Smokey DD is a double beef patty with two slices of smoked cheese, BBQ mayo, sliced red onion, and dill pickle. A favourite of The Garden Festival site, they sold over 25, 000 of these burgers in 2019. Their Decadent burger is made from aged rib eye, with grilled onion, truffle mayo, cheddar cheese, and rocket. Top marks to them this year for also offering the only two non-meat versions available – Veggie Deluxe, a vegetarian burger made from falafel with grated courgette, served with hummus, grilled pepper, lemon garlic mayo, and salad, plus Asian Fusion, a burger made with spiced salmon, served with dill pickle, horseradish mayo and salad.

The chefs line up

At Chef's Burger by Ivan Pažanin, they're going all out and only doing double patties at Zagreb Burger Festival 2020. Their Basil Garlic Burger is served with rocket, tomato, onion, and, of course, basil and garlic. With kapula being a Dalmatian word for onion, you can guess the slant of their Crispy Kapula - crispy onion, honey mustard, onion marmalade, fried onion, and pickled jalapeno. Their Original Cheeseburger comes with tomato, pickle, mustard, mayo and ketchup.

Rešetka had the best burgers that TCN tried this year (although the fish and veggie options at The Garden Kitchen were amazing!)

At Zagreb's Cheese Bar, there's a struggle to translate all the ingredients into English. Between several members of laughing staff and TCN's best guesses, we think their menu is as follows; Debs is a double burger served with škripavac cheese, tomato, salad and pickle. Wild is a burger made from wild boar and deer meat served with salad. Gorgo is a beef burger with gorgonzola cheese, Boško u maramici uses an Istrian beef and their Classic is reassuringly standard. Each of their burgers comes with its own special sauce.

Latin fusion outlet El Toro's burgers are all made with Black Angus beef. Their Classic comes with fried onions, an Emmental-type cheese, and salad. Deep Cheese uses Cheddar cheese and pickled fennel, Smokey again has Cheddar cheese, but with caramelised onions and a smokey, spicy BBQ sauce.

Rougemarin has a cheeseburger and a normal burger, plus a smaller Buhtla option for kids. As with their Zagreb restaurants, all of the meat they've brought to Zagreb Burger Festival 2020 is of high quality and is carefully sourced within a couple of hours drive from the capital.

Kascheta's main burger is made using Cheddar cheese, crispy bacon, fried and caramelized onions, mixed salad and BBQ sauce. Hambanjeros has Slavonian black pig bacon, caramelized onions, pickled jalapenos and BBQ sauce. Say Cheese has Cheddar, plus cheese sauce and onion rings, their Smoke Burger uses smoked buffalo mozzarella and. Their XXL Crni Burger is once again the most startling-looking burger of the event as it's served in a black bun. Black bread?? Eye-catching? Yes. Appetising? Hmmm.

Burger Institute has three options, each named after the leads in Sergio Leone's classic western; The Good is a pretty standard burger, livened with a light lime ketchup. The Bad has a red pepper relish, spicy mayo, and pumpkin seeds. The Ugly adds bacon, BBQ sauce and jalapeno peppers.