The Denman St. Free House

1780 Davie St.

Vancouver, BC

I am going to preface this by saying that I am not bashing the whole place. Just the Burger. The Free House is actually a wicked little restaurant with one of the best views in the city, great cocktails and service. The rest of the menu looks pretty solid and the wine list doesn't suck. BUT the "Fat Burger with Skinny Fries' is simply mediocre. I had heard that they had the best burgers in town with fresh ground tenderloin and in-house seasoning. The first time I asked for medium rare and they said 'no way'. How can you have fresh ground tenderloin and not offer a range of cooking options? WTF, seriously. So, its served with provolone (always a burger bonus) onion confit and the regs for filler. The bun is a multigrain bun grilled thin (this is actually really good for any burger) so its a bit crunchy. This sounds great, right. Umm, no. SO DISAPPOINTING. The fact that it was both creative and disappointing just pushed it into the realm of pretension (that sounds pretentious, doesn't it?).
It wasn't just over-cooked, they defined 'cooking the shit out of something' making it crumbly and super dry (k, that's the biggest no-no). Over-spiced doesn't even begin to describe the the clusterfuck that took place in my mouth. The onion confit was way too sweet, overpowering and sloppy (the should have lightly caramelized them, but whatever). K, I know this sounds harsh, but when your dealing with a rep for the best burgers in the city you better be ready to have the critics go after you. It had so much potential, which is why it was so disappointing.

I went back this weekend, cuz as I said, it is a beautiful spot. I ordered the burger again hoping for a miracle. WHY WHY WHY? The only redeeming quality was the use of orange tomatoes, which are sweet with lots of flavor. But they refused to cook it medium rare, it was surprisingly under-spiced (at least my tongue didn't bitch me out this time) and generally blah. And to top it all off, the caesar salad was friggin nasty. How do you screw that up?? But my Bloody Caesar was good. So, the experience wasn't a total loss

My Rating: "hey Free House...GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AND MAKE A DECENT BURGER...live up to your rep, k?"