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Gordon Ramsay Burger has officially opened in Metro Vancouver.

Located in Coquitlam at the Great Canadian Casino Vancouver (2080 United Blvd.), the gourmet burger restaurant marks the first outpost for the famous British chef in B.C. A Gordon Ramsay Steak is expected to open at River Rock Casino in 2024.

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Soft opened to diners on Dec. 4, the restaurant team hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday where it was proudly shared that more than 5,000 reservations are currently on the books. That’s a lot of buzz for burgers.

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Benefiting from both the celebrity chef name and the draw of other Gordon Ramsay Burger outposts in cities such as Las Vegas and Chicago, the chain is known for offering unique topping combinations that push the boundaries of the conventional two-buns-and-a-patty burger combination.

Lee Bennett, the global culinary director for Gordon Ramsay Restaurants who flew in from the U.K. for the grand opening event, explained that Vancouver guests can expect to find some “GR Burger” favourites on the menu. But there’s a goal of creating a more local experience at the eatery too.

“Whenever we go into a new market, we look at the local market and see if there’s something that’s needed to be incorporated into the menu,” Bennett says. “But also, what we tend to find, is guests want something different than what’s available in the local market. So, we stick to our core signatures first.

“We find our guests expect different flavours then, post-opening, we listen to guest feedback and adapt if needed.”

The opening menu includes standard starters such as hummus and flatbread ($12.75), Hellfire Chicken Wings ($20.75) and Street Corn Dip ($14.75) with elote-style corn, jalapeño and tortilla chips. A Roasted Beetroot Salad ($20.25), said by Bennett to be unique to the Vancouver market, sits alongside two other salads on the menu.

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The starter dishes I sampled were, well, fine. But it’s the burgers that are meant to be the main event.

Priced from $22.75-$34.75 for the “specialty” Truffle Burger, the menu offers seven starting lineup burgers that range from the Hell’s Kitchen Burger ($26.50), with mozzarella, roasted jalapeño, avocado and roasted tomato, to the Southern Yardbird ($24.25), a ground chicken patty with sharp cheddar cheese, bread-and-butter pickles, Bibb lettuce and mustard BBQ sauce.

There’s one Vegan Burger ($25.25) on the menu, which features a plant-based patty and veg-friendly toppings such as roasted tomato and an eggless garlic mayo. An Impossible patty can be subbed out for a beef patty on all burgers for an additional $3.

“All of the ingredients are local — local to Western Canada,” Bennett says of the menu offerings, adding that new burgers will appear monthly in order to shake things up. “There’s always a burger of the month. And what we do is we test the waters with a new flavour of the month. If it sells well like the Truffle Burger, which has been selling really well, then it has a place on the menu.

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“If the reception to the new flavours are lukewarm — nothing lost. It’s not on the regular menu, and we don’t have to go forward with it. That’s why we’re always listening to guest feedback.”

With domed, sesame seed-covered buns and predictably shifting stacks of toppings, the burgers are big — and messy. The patties, cooked with an exterior crust and a subtle pink to the centre, had a nice flavour but were a tad salty for my preference. The Backyard Burger ($22.75), a straight shooter with classic toppings such as American cheese, sweet pickles and sliced red onion, seemed to be the preferred pick of our table.

The Straight Up Dawg ($18.50), a foot-long hotdog on a toasted brioche bun topped with a long line of dill pickle slices, mustard, ketchup and chopped onions, offered a true ballpark hotdog experience. Minus the ball game, of course. I enjoyed the well-done status of the frank, though a fellow diner remarked she found it too dry.

The menu is rounded out with a small selection of sides and a sandwich or two.

Fries, an essential element of any burger joint, were on the thicker-cut side but had a decent crisp on the exterior. The Truffle Parmesan Fries ($12.50) came with a nice truffle aioli for dipping along with a snowfall of parmesan cheese. The Sweet Potato Fries ($7.50), dusted with a generous amount of vanilla powdered sugar (yes, powdered sugar), proved to be a bizarre mix of sweet-savoury that skewed too far into the sweet for my pre-dessert preferences.

For those with a sweet tooth, two milk shakes — Oreo Creme Brûlée ($10.75) and Sticky Toffee ($12.25) — close out the meal offering, served in towering glass sundae cups (of course).

With its generously sized burgers and “dawgs” and early online buzz, GR Burgers is likely to be an Instagram-approved restaurant for the foreseeable future. Just remember, the camera eats first.

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