The burger: "We think of ourselves as a kind of tribute band," said Cynthia Gerdes with a laugh. The co-owner of Hell's Kitchen was referring to the restaurant's Juicy Lucifer, its version of Minnesota's unoffical state burger, the Juicy Lucy. "It's important that no one has the perception that we're trying to put a claim on it," she said. "The Juicy Lucy belongs to Matt's, not us."
It was demand that dictated this recent foray into iconic-burger territory. A not-insignificant percentage of the restaurant's clientele comes from nearby hotels, and many Food Network- and Travel Channel-watching out-of-towners were asking if the famous Juicy Lucy was on the menu. "We'd say they should go to the 5-8, or to Matt's," said Gerdes. "And they'd ask, 'Is that within walking distance?'"
Um, no. Enter the Juicy Lucifer. "We thought that we would give it a try, because our circles don't cross over," said Gerdes. "No one is going to come downtown to get a Juicy, and people in hotels probably aren't going to get in a cab for one."
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? And, frequently, the most lucrative. In the few short months since its debut, the Juicy Lucifer has rocketed up the restaurant's sales charts, surpassing 120 other items to grab the No. 2 spot behind the kitchen's sublime lemon-ricotta pancakes.
"If this kind of growth continues we would end up selling between 18,000 and 19,000 for our first full year," said Hell's Kitchen vice president Pat Forciea. I did the math. That's an average of roughly 50 Juicy Lucifers per day.
Gimmicky but inspired name aside, the Juicy Lucifer follows the time-tested Juicy Lucy engineering, with a pair of patties sandwiching a chunk of good-old American cheese. At Hell's Kitchen, the patties are on the thick-ish side; my guesstimate is that they weigh in somewhere in between a third- and a half-pound. Like the vast majority of stuffed burgers, the Lucifer is uniformly grilled to a more-than-medium.
"There's definitely a science to that sucker," said Gerdes. "It takes time to figure it out. We tested with pepper jack, and cheddar, but other cheeses take too long to melt, and you end up overcooking the burger."
The Lucifer has a handle on the proper Lucy melt. Mine heralded its Juicy Lucy bonafides with a rivulet of semi-molten cheese oozing onto the plate. And rather than streaming out of its hiding place after the first bite -- a frequent Juicy Lucy complaint of mine -- most of the Lucifer's cheese stayed inside yet still managed to retain a semblance of semi-gooey-ness.
