Chef Sang Yoon is widely known for his gastropub, “Father’s Office.” Popular among the LA community, the place is defined by its burger.

When you say “Father’s Office” the first thing that people usually say is “ I had the fathers office burger”.

This one burger has SO many reviews and has received awards from all around. It’s time to hear a little bit of what this burger is about and how it came to be.

The Office Burger Might Have Never Been

Originally Chef Sang Yoon had no plan of serving food at his bar. He thought he was going to take it over and leave it as it was. However, his friend came over to him one day and said, “why don’t you serve burgers?” and from that day on that was exactly what he did.

Now, the only question was, how was he going to make the “Office burger” different from any other California style burger?

It comes as no surprise that Yoon has traveled the world and experienced and worked along side many famous chefs with a variety of different cuisines. What he did was, he kept an informal diary of burgers that he’s eaten from all over the world, put it onto an excel spreadsheet, diagrammed all the different parts to the burger (bun, produce, meat, sauce etc.) and tried to find a commonality of things he liked. After looking it over for a while, he noticed the common denominator and the thing he liked about each burger the most was the bacon.

Gourmet Burger? No, It’s Not an Oxymoron

At the time there weren’t any real “ gourmet burgers”. The choices were fast food, or fast food that costs twice as much. There was nothing in between so he looked for inspiration for the Office burger. He found, that the key inspiration for the burger was French onion soup. His reason for that is that it’s made up of beef, bread, Guerra cheese, and sweet caramelized onions. One of the things that he had to draw influence from, was not from other burgers, it was from some of Yoon’s favorite experiences with beef. One of his best beef experiences was dry aged rib. The only problem was, that you couldn’t take a dry aged rib and put it in a burger because it would end up costing about $80.

Chef Yoon figured out a way to make his vision into a reality. Today Father’s Office has it’s own designated room where it dry age’s the meat. The secret is, they literally treat their meat like its being dry aged for steak. It’s not something that is so commonly known, because it’s a step that nobody else takes. The reason for that being, because it’s incredibly costly, and labor intensive. However, Yoon says that the whole process is what makes the burger the main part of the show, and what makes Father’s Office, one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles.

Father’s Office has its fair share of delicious dishes and drinks, but I have to say that overall the Fathers Office burger stands out and has definitely exceeded my expectations. It continues to be one of California’s all around best burgers. Definitely recommended !