Disclosure: I was a guest of the property for this meal.
When I was sixteen years old, I spent a summer on an immersion language program in Royan, not far from La Rochelle. As part of the program, we were housed by local families; my host was a woman who had raised several children and now lived alone. There were five of us living in the rooms left empty by her brood, and on my first night there, she served cordon bleu, a delicious creation of chicken breast stuffed with ham and cheese then breaded and pan-fried until crispy on the outside and gooey within. As she set down the plates, she looked at me. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I know about you.” She disappeared, then, into the kitchen, and she returned with a platter bearing a whole fish.
Guess I eat fish now, I thought. It was only my first foray into the incomprehension around vegetarian diets that plagued France in 2004, that sometimes plague it still today.
I tell this story a lot. The part of the story I rarely tell is what came next. I returned to the U.S.; I continued to be an erstwhile pescatarian. And then, after a few months, I gave into the siren call of the only thing I’d missed, really, with the exception of sushi: a cheeseburger.
It came from Fuddrucker’s, and while I’m sure that it left much to be desired, I must admit that the Fuddrucker’s approach is kind of my ideal. I like a thicker, juicier patty, a simple, sesame-studded bun. The current trend of smashburgers doesn’t quite scratch my itch, but since Dumbo has emerged as the Parisian go-to for this style, I was intrigued to give it a try.
There are several Dumbo outposts in Paris, but the Marais one is the only location with on-site seating – worth it, in my opinion, so that you can devour your sandwich hot.
The simple menu is definitely a draw: At the Marais location, they have just three main dish items: chicken nuggets (6), cheeseburger (10), and earth burger (13). You can supplement any with twice-cooked fries (4), and between the two of us, we sampled everything except the chicken.
Despite their pale color, the fries here were excellent – lightly battered and super crispy. There’s a shaker of salt and a massive jar of pickled chiles to which you can help yourself. (We did – liberally.) I loved the “special sauce” – basically Big Mac sauce – with its touch of pickley acidity.
But when it comes to the smashburger? Honestly, I had a hard time getting the hype. There were elements of it I loved, like the fluffy potato bun with its note of sweetness, the generosity with the American cheese, and the toppings of finely chopped white onion, bread-and-butter pickle, and American yellow mustard. But the dry-aged patty? Honestly, it didn’t wow me.
This could, admittedly, be a me problem. After all, a thin, lacy patty is not the thing that gets me excited, remember? But if we’re sacrificing juiciness for flavor, the flavor should be intense. And this patty? It was kind of… bland. It was crisp, to be sure, but I didn’t get much by way of caramelized flavors, and it was fairly underseasoned, paling in comparison to the generous toppings. To top it all off, while I loved the texture of the bun, it seemed like way too much bread for such a thin patty, overwhelming the flavor of the star even further. It was fine, but I’d give it no more than a 6/10.
The veggie burger, on the other hand, was astounding.
I’m not usually a fake meat girl, but the flavor here was delicious, umami-rich and meaty. The sandwich itself benefits from a touch of lettuce, which you don’t get on the cheeseburger, and the special sauce stands in for the ketchup and mustard you get with the beef. But it’s above all the seasoning that was on-point here, catapulting the burger to a 9 – even for this lover of a juicier patty.
Dumbo – 6 rue de Poitou, 75003