Bar Luca

By now almost every Sydneysider has visited Bar Luca at least once, so I am but one small voice in the chorus of genuflection: the Blame Canada burger is the best burger in town.

With its nectary maple-glazed bacon and creamy poutine curds, the Blame Canada burger ($16; +$6 for fries and smoky, spicy BBQ chicken wings) is a joyous celebration of sweetness, saltiness, fat and American exceptionalism with every mouthful. Despite there being so many ingredients and so many contrasting (yet ultimately and oh-so-satisfyingly harmonious) flavours, the beef remains the true star of the burger. And rightfully so, because it's cooked to such pinkish perfection that it overflows with its juiciness - it's the first thing you notice with every bite, until suddenly an explosion of fruity sweetness arrives with the maple-glazed bacon, a taste lingering just long enough for the soggy poutine fries and cheese curds to round things off with their creaminess. Rinse and repeat, and before you know it, the burger's gone, this inspired symphony of flavours has finished, and by the time you've polished off the remaining strands of nori-sprinkled and perfectly seasoned fries, you've already mentally pencilled in your next visit to Bar Luca.

Despite such awe-inspiring food, several minor but inexcusable annoyances prevent Bar Luca from being a 5/5 experience in my books.

Firstly, there needs to be a better dining system - the "ordering at the bar and bringing a number back to your table" method may work for any other pub, but for a packed and numbingly loud place like Bar Luca, it just increases foot traffic within the restaurant unnecessarily, making the otherwise simple activity of ordering food overly complicated and frankly, headache-inducing. Either have full table service, or don't allocate tables to people until they have their food.

Secondly, Bar Luca really needs to hire more staff: the waiting list to get into the place, the first and integral step of their convoluted system of operations, was unmanned for most of our wait, which meant quite a few people walked in off the street, jumped the queue and headed straight for the line at the bar to order their food. Luckily, some staff caught on to this and directed them to wait outside, but again, it's just unnecessarily complicated.

Thirdly, due to their meteoric rise in popularity over the recent years, Bar Luca has crammed in as many bar stools and tables as possible into an already cramped space. This means during peak times you're literally shoulder-to-shoulder and back-to-back with strangers: think about all the "excuse me"'s you'll be muttering as you shuffle past them to order your food and all the bumping of elbows as you struggle to eat comfortably.

Bar Luca, for all the frustrating faults in its operation, offers absolutely stellar food that has dominated social media and the Sydney foodie zeitgeist for several years now. In combination with their unique and creative weekly burger specials, it's hard to imagine how they will ever go out of fashion.