Best Burgers in Buffalo: Taverns and Beyond

The best burgers in Buffalo come out of its taverns and neighborhood bars, so start where those cluster: Elmwood Village, Allentown, Hertel Avenue in North Buffalo, Chippewa Street downtown and the Larkin District on the East Side. Black Rock and the waterfront around Canalside add a few more.

Buffalo is a bar-food city, and the burger shares the menu with two local legends. Chicken wings tossed in hot sauce and served with blue cheese dressing and celery are the first, a dish the city traces to 1964. Beef on weck is the second: thin rare roast beef on a kummelweck roll crusted with coarse salt and caraway, served with horseradish and a cup of jus. On Fridays, many taverns add a fish fry, the Western New York ritual of battered fried fish.

Burgers in Buffalo: key facts

• Neighborhoods to explore: Elmwood Village, Allentown, Hertel Avenue, Chippewa Street, the Larkin District, Black Rock and Canalside.
• Local specialties: Buffalo wings and beef on weck, the roast beef sandwich on a salt-and-caraway roll.
• Tavern tradition: the Friday fish fry.
• Getting around: the Metro Rail line runs along Main Street from downtown to the University at Buffalo’s South Campus.
• Currency: US dollar (USD); New York sales tax is added to menu prices.
• What our guides check: a named house burger, the beef, a dated price and a venue still open on the date we publish.

Every guide we publish on Buffalo is dated and lists only venues, addresses, prices and ratings we could verify. For other cities, browse all our burger restaurant guides.