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There was a time long ago when Trev practically lived on burgers and fries and began to look like it.
Someone thoughtfully pointed out that when you look down your body and can no longer see the tips of your Dunlop Volleys, it’s time to reconsider your diet, and burgers were relegated to a rare treat, or a reward for running a half-marathon, or some such idiocy. Trev was reminded of this sad part of his life just last week when he and the missus were virtually forced off the footpath by a crowd of Lycra louts here for the triathlon.
He dusted himself off and said to the missus: “The sight of men in Lycra makes me crave a big juicy hamburger, and lo and behold, what do we have right in front of us but a designer burger joint, so après toi, cherie.” The missus is not exactly a burger fan, but she is helpless to deny Trev when he speaks French to her, so in we went to Grill’d.
Now before we get to the overpriced gourmet burgers of today, a little Noosa burger history. A lot of people think the late great Betty Wallace introduced the burger to our town, and she certainly made Betty’s Burgers famous around Australia, if not the world, but a good decade before Betty opened her first burger stand where the Sofitel is today, the Clist family’s Noosa Wave kiosk at the National Park gates was offering excellent burgers featuring hand-made patties built on the premises by matriarch Juliet.
Of course, you could find a hamburger in Noosa well before this, but these were a bit special, and back in the day when he could still ride a surfboard, Trev remembers many an après-surf munchathon, washing it down with a can of Coke while sitting on the rocks.
Betty’s Super Sandwich Shop opened in 1978, but by the time she moved across the street to Tingirana Arcade a couple of years later, the Betty Burger brand had arrived. The burgers weren’t exactly works of art, but at a buck a pop, there were no complaints. As Betty told a reporter of the time, “In holiday times I’ll do couple of hundred burgers a day, then on a rainy day, it might go down to just 30. But I get so busy, sometimes I pray for rain!”
Betty’s Burgers in the arcade was about as big as a backyard thunderbox, with a stool for the chef, a hotplate, a little fridge and a sink and not much else. And it became an institution until redevelopment forced her down to a van on The Spit. When a reporter asked in the ‘90s if she was contemplating a chain of Betty’s Burgers, Betty said: “Well, it has been mentioned.”
Funny about that. But Betty had long retired when a bloke called David Hales rolled into town in 2014 and launched the Betty’s Burgers phenomenon. To be fair, Hales did eventually acknowledge his debt to Noosa’s burger queen, when not busily buying up beachfront houses, but Trev has avoided the joint out of respect for the real Betty.
So in we went to its competitor, the brainchild of another multi-millionaire who’s probably never flipped a pattie in his life. Interestingly, the Grill’d franchise, which has been around a decade longer than the new Betty’s, has a far more interesting menu, prides itself on its “healthy” and “plant-based” options and gives back to the community through its Local Matters program, ranks a lowly 12th on TripAdvisor’s survey of Noosa burger joints while Betty’s tops the list. Still, Trev will always support the underdog.
Trev ordered a bottle of Redbank Pinot Grigio ($32) off the slim list and found a quiet table in a corner that he used to haunt when it was Gaston’s. Our waitress looked confused when we asked for an ice bucket, but she returned with a Corona bucket built to hold a dozen beers and that did the job.
Trev was tempted by the Fable Spicy Cheeseburger (“plant-based, meaty mushroom with aged cheddar etc”) but there was no mention of green ants and he didn’t really think Heston Blumenthal would be emerging from the kitchen anytime soon, so it was the Sir Truffle wagyu burger for him ($16.90), the Chicken Caesar Salad ($14.50) for her, and a pair of Vintage and Chicken Zen sliders ($14) and a snack-size chips ($4.70) to share.
The food arrived almost immediately and all at once. There was so much of it we had to move to a bigger table. The sliders were tasty and the thick cut chips with herb seasoning delicious. The Caesar was huge and predictable, the rather bland chicken breast saved by the crispy bacon. But the star of the show was Trev’s giant Sir Truffle in which, wonder of wonders, you could actually taste the truffles in the lightly-spread mayo, the perfect accompaniment for a delicious wagyu pattie.
The verdict: “Nothing fake and no BS” is the Grill’d mantra, so maybe they should drop the Blumenthal nonsense. But all in all, Trev’s guilty pleasure burger fix was excellent. No complaints.
Grill’d Noosa, 50 Hastings Street, phone 5455 3809.